Dublin Downton Drumgoole
by LauraHuntORI
Summary: Scenes from the life they made in Ireland: The calling of the banns, the gathering of the families, the rite of marriage, the creation and enjoyment of domestic felicity across the Great Divide, the visits to Downton, and as a grand finale an Anglo-Irish castle in flames.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: **This is by no means an exhaustive account, just a little taste.

**Disclaimer: ** I'm not even a custodian, my dears, let alone an owner. These characters and their settings are the work of others. I hope I do not offend with my homage.

* * *

_"I'm ready to travel," she had said, "and you're my ticket."_

It was perfect, utterly perfect. Even in his sunniest, most optimistic imaginings, he had never dared hope for so unambiguous a sign, the portent rendered all the more valid and potent because there was no possible way she could have known. Tom's heart swelled, and his lips curved as they always did when he thought about that magical night, and the amazing words that had fallen from the lips of his beloved.

_ "I'm ready to travel—" _

"Two, please," he said.

_"—and you're my ticket." _

Tom Branson needed two tickets because Lady Sybil Crawley had pledged herself to make the journey with him.

* * *

Early Wednesday morning, Tom went to the Downton train station as he and his fiancée had arranged. He watched the Renault Landaulette pull up, Lady Edith behind the wheel, and Lady Mary and Lady Sybil her passengers. When Edith saw him, she called, "Take care of the luggage, Branson, and I'll park the motor."

Branson nodded, then assisted Lady Mary and Lady Sybil to alight before moving to the rear of the car to unstrap Sybil's cases with the quick economical movements of a professional.

"I'll see you up there," Lady Edith called out. It was impossible to tell whom she addressed, but it was her two sisters who waved their acknowledgement. Branson had already gone into the station with the luggage. When he emerged, sans cases, he automatically began to walk to where he knew the car would be parked. He was halfway to the carpark before he realized what he was doing. He shook his head, laughing softly at himself, and headed back to the station platform.

* * *

At such an early hour, the platform wasn't crowded, so Branson saw the ladies immediately.

"You'll write as soon as you know?" Lady Mary was asking her youngest sister as Branson came up to them.

"Of course, darling, you know I will," Lady Sybil replied.

"And we'll keep working on Papa and Granny for you," Lady Edith chimed in.

"Good luck with that," was the youngest's rejoinder.

"Good luck to _you_," Lady Mary corrected.

"I don't need luck," Lady Sybil assured her.

Branson almost crossed himself. "We _all _need luck," he said.

All three young ladies stared at him in surprise.

Since he had called her attention to him by speaking, Lady Mary addressed her former chauffeur, future brother-in-law. "Goodbye, Branson. Take good care of her." She spoke as impersonally as if he were taking her sister in the capacity of chauffeur to another training course in York, not 'across the water' to a new life as his wife. He shook off the impression.

"I will, milady. Goodbye." Branson felt as if he ought to be saying something else, something profound, acknowledging Lady Mary somehow. He didn't really know what to say to her, except, "Thank you, milady. For everything."

Lady Mary nodded, her expression softened somewhat.

"Why are you thanking_ her_?" The forgotten middle sister's voice was sharp with hurt feelings. _She_ was his 'sister,' not Mary.

"Oh , Edith, really," Lady Mary said in disgust. "Can't you keep your jealousy under control?"

Tom was already answering her though. "You know she kept quiet about Sybil and me, when she didn't have to, and there were… other things as well." He shot a quick up-from-under glance at Lady Mary, and saw that she knew to what he referred.

Edith, however, did _not _know. "What is that to be thanked for?" she said petulantly. "I didn't tell on you, either, but you haven't thanked _me._"

Her truculence made Sybil and Mary laugh.

Branson smiled at Lady Edith. "Thank you, milady," he said gravely.

"For what?" she asked, eagerly.

"For… everything."

"Such as?"

"For not telling on us." He smiled at her.

"And what else?" She probed.

"And for stopping us from eloping."

"And?"

"And helping us to get ready to leave."

Lady Mary and Lady Sybil were laughing, but Edith was frowning. "Is that all?"

"What do you want him to say?" Lady Mary asked, exasperated.

Surprisingly, Branson pulled Lady Edith into his arms for a quick embrace right there in front of everyone on the station platform. When his mouth was right next to her ear, he whispered, "_A dheirfiúr_, thank you for teaching me my place." He released her, and stood back a little, smiling at her astonishment.

"Still jealous?" Lady Mary asked her sister.

Sybil laughed, "Now it's _me_ who's jealous."

Tom was still looking at Edith. She was satisfied now with his gratitude, but her expression was quizzical. "As it turns out, brother, your_ place_ wasn't quite what we thought it was, was it?" Her lips finally curved up a bit.

"No," Tom agreed. "It wasn't at all what we thought."

"Goodbye, Tom."

"Goodbye, Edith."

It was time. The train had arrived, and the young couple got in.

* * *

Sybil had never ridden third class before. In her excitement, she kissed Tom as they sat down.

The middle aged woman seated across from the young couple harrumphed. "In my day, you didn't kiss a boy like that until you were engaged to him."

"We are engaged, ma'am. We're on our way to be married now." Sybil assured the woman.

In that case, all was forgiven.

* * *

The advantage of leaving Downton so early in the day was that they were able to transfer to the steam packet in Liverpool while it was still morning, and arrive in Dublin only shortly after noon.

They exited the boat onto a bustling quay on the river Liffey, which bisects the city. Sybil, drinking in all the new and exciting sights and sounds, found her eyes drawn to a female newspaper vendor, who appeared to be making a beeline for Sybil's future husband.

While Tom's interest in the news was certainly legendary at Downton, it amused her greatly to see that the signs were upon him like the mark of Cain for total strangers to read and respond to at the very moment of his arrival in the city. They were _still on the dock, _for goodness sake! The newspaper business must be lucrative. The vendor was a handsome woman, reasonably well-dressed in a respectable, middle-class way, bright-eyed and happy looking, a little sheaf of newspapers under her arm.

It was not Sybil's imagination that the woman had been making directly for them: when she reached Tom, she stopped abruptly right in front of him to show off her wares, one of the papers open to the middle and folded over in her hands, while the others remained tucked under her arm.

"Here," the woman told him, pointing.

Unfazed by her boldness, Tom looked where he was bid, read over the thing she had pointed to, then smiled at the woman broadly. "How many do you have?"

"Five," she told him. "If you think we need more, we can get them tomorrow." The woman turned to Sybil, smiling. "It'll be in some several days."

_'This city is crazy,'_ Sybil thought. The newspaper vendor's smile was infectious though, even familiar. _'Why is she—' _

"Here," Tom said. "Read it."

Sybil took the newspaper, and looked where he was indicating. It was their wedding announcement. Almost automatically, she began to say, "It's very n—" then stopped as it dawned on her what the announcement said. But it said… it said…Sybil looked up at her betrothed in confusion.

"What's wrong?" The newspaper vendor asked. "Didn't I spell everyone's name right?"

_This was Tom's mother! _Sybil could only nod.

"And you're the third daughter?"

_We haven't even been introduced! _

"I am, but—"

"So what's the problem?" Brenna looked at her son's intended as thought she had known her from birth, but had not previously suspected her to be mentally deficient.

Sybil was looking at her fiancé in consternation. "You're the _seventh _son?"

"Well," Tom temporized, "technically—"

"Oh, hush," Brenna interrupted. "You're _my _seventh son. And I'm the one who paid for the announcement, not your Da."

"Well, Da's hardly in a condition to pay for anything—"

Sybil was still stuck on the number. "You had _seven _sons?" _'Papa would be so jealous.'_

"Eight." It was a correction, not a boast.

"Eight? And you had _all boys_?"

The strange accusation took her aback. "I didn't have all boys. I had five girls, wasn't that enough?"

Sybil's eyes were round with wonder what time Tom was objecting, "Mam, all the _sons _were boys."

His mother glared at him, mock-angry. "I didn't come all the way down to the docks to listen to your cheek," she huffed. "You're not too old for me to switch, you know."

"Yes, I am." Tom showed her the tip of his tongue between his teeth to prove it.

Brenna laughed, and finally pulled him into a hug. "You're a scamp. I've missed you, boy."

"I've missed you," he admitted. Sybil caught a glimpse of his eyes over his mother's shoulder, and seeing the love and delight that filled them, it occurred to her that when he left Ireland to work at Downton, he hadn't really believed he'd ever see this woman again.

Would Sybil ever see _her _parents again?


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note: **This chapter starts immediately after the end of chapter one.

**Disclaimer: **I'm not even a custodian, my dears, let alone an owner. These characters and their settings are the work of others. I hope I do not offend with my homage.

* * *

"Mam, this is Lady Sybil Crawley. Sybil, this is my mother, Mrs. Brenna Branson."

"Milady," Brenna greeted her, formally.

"Please, Mrs. Branson, call me 'Sybil.'"

Mrs. Branson raised an eyebrow. "Very well." She tried it: "Sybil."

Sybil smiled and nodded. _'Stud earrings again,' _Tom thought. _'What a waste.' _Not that her neck wasn't beautiful, it was. He just liked to see dancing earrings.

"Well, Sybil, you may call me 'Brenna,' if you wish, or 'Mam,' as Tom does, or indeed, anything that feels comfortable to you."

"Thank you," Sybil said. She too tried it out: "Brenna."

Brenna beamed at her, then at her son. "Have you eaten?"

"We brought sandwiches with us from home," Sybil told her, "but that's all."

Brenna nodded. "Dara will have stirabout for us at the flat," she said, "and Father Cornelius is expecting us after that. Tom, you can leave your things at my place until tonight: Donal said he'd collect you after dinner."

They retrieved the baggage. Sybil took Tom's case, while he took the two larger of hers, Brenna taking Sybil's remain case with a disbelieving shake of her head. They had left the dock before it penetrated Sybil's brain that her future mother-in-law intended for them to walk to her flat.

Brenna caught the younger woman's momentary expression of dismay. "It's only a few blocks, _milady_, and you don't have a job yet. You want to waste good money on a cab?"

"_Ma-am,_" Tom objected, stretching it out into two syllables by way of expressing his disapproval of her discourtesy, even if she _was _his mother. Sybil would be his _wife._

"It's all right," Sybil soothed him, not offended. "I expect we'll be doing a lot of walking from now on."

One corner of Brenna's mouth quirked up into a T. "I expect you will," she agreed.

Brenna walked fast, talking briskly to her son about people Sybil had never heard of, catching him up, she presumed, on the family news. "I thought we'd make a coddle for supper," she finished.

Tom nodded eager agreement to this plan, adding, "Mrs. Patmore at Downton puts apples in her coddle-"

"Tart apples or sweet?" his mother asked.

Tom thought, conjuring the taste in his mind, and comparing it to the taste of apples he had had. "Tart, surely?" he guessed.

"Sure, we can try it if you'd like."

For some reason the woman's casual willingness to depart from her usual recipe surprised Sybil.

"We'll see about getting some apples after we see Father Cornelius." She glanced back at Sybil. "Did Tommy talk to you about that?"

Sybil nodded. She switched the suitcase to her other hand. Her arms felt like they were going to fall off, but she knew only to well that Tom's case was substantially lighter than any of hers, and Brenna, who probably had a good three decades on Sybil, looked like she could walk all the way to Galway carrying Sybil's case without even breathing heavily. Sybil felt she would die before she complained. And perhaps she would die of exhaustion before they arrived. She caught Tom's eye. He eyed his mother back a few yards ahead and whispered, "Should I take it from you? I can carry three of them."

"No," she hissed. "I can pull my own weight," she lied, thinking her arm was going to come out of its socket at any second. At last, they arrived at Brenna's building. Unfortunately, they still had to climb up to the three flights of stairs to Brenna's flat.

The flat was clean, cheerful, and neat, but it was tiny. The whole of it would have fit easily into the Dining Room at Downton, if not into the Drawing Room. The house had originally been a Georgian townhome, but had been cut into flats to be rented out. There was "front room" or parlor, with a little kitchen behind it, two small bedrooms, and a sleeping closet where Brenna said Dara slept.

The larger bedroom (if a term containing the word large could be used of so cramped a chamber) was Brenna's own. It was completely filled by a handsome double bed, and matching armoire and dressing table. The smaller room contained a weirdly tall and narrow single bed, three hooks on the wall for clothes, and a "dressing table" which was approximately two feet wide and maybe eight inches deep. The mirror which hung on the wall above it might have been eight inches by ten.

"Are you going to be able to fit all of that luggage in here?" Brenna asked. "If not, I guess you can put the overflow into the front room or the kitchen." She was not going to say anything about the excessive among of luggage. The girl was moving here permanently, not visiting.

"I see why you opted to have Tom stay elsewhere," Sybil said.

Both Brenna and Tom laughed at that.

"Among other reasons," Tom added, blushing.

Dara had come in while they were arranging Sybil's many belongings.

"Welcome home, Tom," she said shyly.

"Dara?" He smiled at her gently. "You're all grown up."

She smiled and nodded.

"Come here," he said. She came up to him, and he enfolded her in a hug. "I'm so sorry about, Danny," they heard him whisper.

She sighed, but was glad to be hugging their cousin at least. "I know," she told him. "We all miss him. He loved you, Tommy, don't forget that."

They had pulled back to look at each other.

"I let him down," Tom said. "I never meant to—"

"You didn't."

It was clear he didn't believe her. The girl grasped his arms and shook him gently. "Tommy! After you left he told us you had been right to go. He said he told _you_ that."

"He did," Tom admitted.

"You never let him down, Tom. You couldn't." This time it was she who enfolded him in a comforting, healing hug.

Having set her cousin straight, Dara served them all bowls of a rather salty oatmeal porridge accompanied by extremely strong tea, then sat down and ate with them, which Sybil thought a bit odd. Brenna noticed it and said, "I'm training Dara to be a servant, but she's really my niece. She's Donal O'Neill's sister."

"Ah," Sybil said. "Cousin Dara, it's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Sybil."

"Cousin Sybil," Dara said, "I'm very glad you've come."

"Me, too." Sybil told her.

"Do you have a wedding ring?" Brenna asked.

"Yes, we do." Tom said, just as his fiancée had opened her mouth to say 'no.'

"We _do_?" Sybil repeated in surprise. "It's the first I've heard of it."

"How did you think we were going to—" Tom stopped abruptly. He eyed his mother warily. "—get married without a wedding ring?" he finished smoothly. "I had it before I had your answer."

Brenna treated him to a basilisk stare, but forbore to ask what it was he was so obviously intent on keeping from her.

Sybil considered. Had she wanted to help chose the ring? What did it matter really? The marriage was what was important, not the symbols. Still… "Is it bad luck for me to see it?"

Tom and Brenna looked at each other.

Brenna answered. "It isn't bad luck. It's quite usual here for wedding rings to be passed down from generation to generation."

"That's common at home, too." Sybil agreed. "Is it a family ring?"

Brenna looked at her son. From her expression, it was plain _she _had not given him a family ring. Sybil realized how ridiculous it was even to think such a thing—if Brenna had given him a family ring, she wouldn't have asked him if he had one.

"No, it's not a family ring. Yet." He sipped his tea.

"Can we see it?" Brenna asked.

"Sure," he said. The women waited, but he didn't move from his chair, just continued to sit there drinking his tea.

"Tom?" Sybil prompted, but he only looked at her inquiringly, as if he truly didn't know what she wanted.

Finally, "Are you going to get this ring and show it to us?" Brenna reminded him.

Tom blinked at her. He moistened his lips, and rubbed his chin thoughtfully with one finger, but still didn't move and didn't answer, either.

"Tom," Sybil said again. She motioned towards his mother with her head. He met Sybil's eyes, and she saw that he was afraid to show the ring to them. _'Why did you buy a ring without me then.'_ She frowned.

"Tommy," Brenna said, "Have you been struck blind, deaf, and dumb?"

His head jerked towards his mother, and he stared at her, then looked from her scowl, to Sybil's frown, to Dara's look of confusion. He shook his head and blew out a breath. "Sorry." He fished in his watch pocket, pulled something out, and handed it to his mother.

She saw it was a gold 'fede' or friendship ring, what the Italians had called 'mani in fede' or hands in faith, fashioned into the clasped hands of a man and woman, as was traditional when it was to be used as a wedding or betrothal ring. But this one... was unusual.

The hands on this ring wore gloves. The smaller 'female' hand was wrist length and covered with fine engraving, as if the woman wore a lace glove. The ring was old, the 'lace' in the middle of the glove worn nearly smooth, the pattern deeper and more clearly visible on the sides. The larger 'male' hand wore gloves that seemingly extended to mid-forearm, and bore a geometric pattern of straight perpendicular lines like a leather driving glove might have.

The clasped gloves were affixed to a band which looked like it had been made out of three slender chaplet thumb rings riveted together instead of being a single broad band. To symbolize the trinity, perhaps? It did not look like a religious ring. Brenna had no idea why Tom had chosen it, but it was a ring, and it was gold, and in the final analysis, that was all an Irish wedding ring was required to be. "Fine," she approved it, handing it off to Sybil.

"When do you start at the newspaper?" Brenna asked, finished with the ring as a conversational topic, now that she knew they had one.

"Tomorrow." Tom said.

"It's just as well, I imagine—" "Tom!"

Sybil's sudden squeal broke in. "I love it!" She left her seat to come around and hug him, which of course made him pop up from his chair as if he were on a spring. Sybil threw herself into his arms.

Brenna and Dara looked again at the ring which Sybil had left on the table to see what they had missed. It looked different, not ring-shaped anymore. Had she broken it somehow? She certainly seemed in no distress. Brenna picked it up again and saw what she had missed. It was a gimmal ring. Sybil had worked the pivot to part the gloved hands, so that now what had lain clasped unseen between the golden hands was revealed: a deep red enameled heart.

_'That really is lovely,'_ Brenna thought, in spite of herself.

Sybil had turned herself around in Tom's arms, so she was now spooned against him, his arms lightly clasping her waist, while the two of them watched Brenna's second, more approving examination of the ring.

Dara leaned closer to see, and asked, "What's that it says?"

Sybil craned her neck up and back to her intended. She hadn't noticed the engraving in her excitement at finding the secret heart. Tom smiled at her, but still looked nervous. She smiled back reassuringly, and felt his tension ease somewhat.

Brenna adjusted the three bands so she could read the engraved message: "'Love is a journey we make together.'"

Sybil gasped and glanced back to see Tom now simultaneously smiling and blushing. "It's perfect, Tom! Did you have that engraved on it?"

"No," he admitted. "It was like that when I bought it."

Sybil's brow furrowed. "But I thought you said you bought it before you hand my answer."

"I did," he confirmed, grinning broadly now.

She was shocked. "Golly."

"Now you know why I had such a funny look on my face when you told me your answer was that you were 'ready to travel.'"

* * *

Father Cornelius was perplexed by Sybil's attitude. His glance shifted from her, to her bridegroom, to her mother-in-law to be. _'Fine,'_ he thought. Aloud, he suggested, " Perhaps I could have a word with the young lady alone? A few prayers might be in order."

Tom blinked, but, taking the not-so-subtle hint immediately, rose and went out into the sanctuary. His mother stayed where she was, her calculating gaze taking in both the middle-aged priest and the beautiful English girl Tommy was so intent on marrying.

"You, too, Brenna," the priest said finally.

The woman ignored him a moment longer, in favor of looking at Sybil. _'Obviously,' _Sybil speculated, _'she didn't know there would be a __**private **__interview.' _

There was a bang from the sanctuary. Sybil didn't know what it was, but both Brenna and the priest recognized the not unfamiliar sound of a kneeler hitting the wooden floor. Tom had obediently gone to pray. _'This is my best dog,' _Brenna thought reminiscently. _'That old man left his mark on us all.' _

"Brenna," Father Cornelius said again.

She looked towards him curiously.

"Get out."

One corner of her mouth curved up. "I hear and obey, Father." She rose and went to join her son.

* * *

The petitioners were easy to find, because their prayers were audible, the soft murmur soothing in the empty sanctuary. They knelt together in one of the pews, Tom with a short string of green beads suspended from his ring finger, and his mother working her way along a much longer string of beads, one about the size of the necklaces Sybil and her sister Mary were in the habit of wearing at dinner.

Tom's fingers moved to the next bead, and his voice sounded alone, as Sybil and Father Cornelius walked towards them. "Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui Iesus."

Brenna's voice joined him, and they said together, "Sancta Maria, mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc, et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen."

They continued their seemingly endless repetitions of this, even after Sybil and the priest had come up to them. When they reached the end of Tom's green beads, they stopped, and looked up at the priest. Waiting.

Father Cornelius smiled. "We'll begin reading the banns on Sunday," he said.

Suddenly, all four of them were smiling.

* * *

Brenna said she knew of a street nearby where a produce market was held on Wednesdays, so the three of them headed there next in search of apples.

"Of course, we may not find any, this time of year, but if we do, this late in the day, we may get a good price so they don't have to take them home… and if we can't find anything, I don't doubt the hen house will still have a few left in its barrels."

At least, that's what Sybil _thought_ she said. What was 'the hen house'? And this was late? She doubted it was four o'clock yet. At home, Mama had hardly seemed awake by that hour… at least before the war.

They had reached the market. Brenna set a brisk pace, saying she knew a couple of people who were usually here, and who generally offered reasonably good wares. Sybil and Tom followed, taking care to keep her in sight.

Out of the blue, Sybil announced, "The unbelieving wife is sanctified by the believing husband."

Tom looked at her inquiringly.

"That's what he said to me. In case you were wondering." When Tom's expression changed to one of concern, Sybil added, "Don't worry. He didn't say I shouldn't tell you. If you want my opinion, the only reason he asked the two of you to leave was because he didn't want your mother breathing down his neck while he spoke to me."

Tom laughed, eyeing his mother's back to make sure she was too far away to overhear.

"He said it was in the bible. First Corinthians or something? 'For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the believing wife; and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the believing husband; otherwise your children should be unclean; but now they are holy.'" If she was troubled by her faith being characterized as 'unbelieving,' she gave no sign of it.

"So what does that mean?" Tom asked.

"It seems, husband, that we make up for each other's deficiencies." They smiled at each other in satisfaction, and followed Brenna's purposeful stride through the market happily, hand in hand.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note:** It's still the same day.

**Disclaimer:** I'm not even a custodian, my dears, let alone an owner. These characters and their settings are the work of others. I hope I do not offend with my homage.

* * *

Brenna's keen nose sniffed out a stall displaying a few Bramley apples which, if past their prime, were still within a graceful and vigorous middle age. Her hazel eyes having gleamed on them, she affected to have no interest in them at all, asking questions about the stall's other wares instead. She looked around the stall desultorily, and turned to go, leading Sybil to conclude she had rejected the apples they had found here in favor of seeing what 'the hen house' (whatever that was) had to offer.

Not so. "Well," Brenna sighed, "how much to take those apples off your hands, then?"

* * *

Back at the flat, Dara had gone out somewhere, so it fell to the three of them to prepare the evening meal. Brenna set Tom to work on the apples, since she did not know what he wanted done with them, and handed Sybil a knife and a couple of onions. Brenna herself tackled the potatoes, bacon, and sausages.

As she worked, Sybil listened to her companions' chatter, but could not contribute to it, since she knew none of the people to whom they referred. To remind them she was present, when they at last paused for breath, she offered, "Do you know why slicing onions makes you cry?"

Mother and son looked at her with identical expressions, revealing that they not only did not know, but had never asked themselves. To these two, some things in life inevitably brought stinging tears. Sybil continued fearlessly anyway, "It's because the vapors of the onion juice react with the liquid in your eyes to form sulfuric acid."

The matching looks of horror in the two sets of eyes heightened an already pronounced resemblance, and informed her that they were well aware of what sulfuric acid could do.

"Of course, it's a very dilute sulfuric acid," she reassured them. "... little bit of medical trivia there," she finished, her knife cutting through layers of onion to thunk with finality onto the cutting board.

Neither mother nor son had anything to say in response, but Tom put one hand up to touch the area near his eye gently.

Sybil chuckled softly."Checking to make sure it hasn't dissolved?"

Tom nodded. "This explains why his lordship's shoes didn't dissolve when Mr. Bates put sulfuric acid in the shoe polish. I always wondered."

* * *

While their meal cooked Brenna drew a map of the city, outlining the location of the flat they were in, the medical facilities Sybil said she wanted to go to, Donal's flat where Tom would be staying, the newspaper office where he would work, and which routes between these places Brenna considered 'safe.'

"Never walk in this alley," she told them, drawing a neat little skull and crossbones and surrounding it with shading in the affected area. "Several people have been killed there... This is an RIC barracks, so you should probably stay away from there as well... Tom, you can walk in this block if you must, but Sybil had better not unless someone is with her..."

"Can I have a copy, too?" Sybil asked.

Brenna's brow creased. "This map is for you."

"Doesn't Tom need one?"

Brenna looked at her son. He appeared as perplexed as Brenna felt. "What does he need one for?"

"Doesn't he need to know where it's safe to go, too?"

"I'm telling him," Brenna said.

Tom laughed, understanding. "I've been a chauffeur ten years, love. I'll remember where I'm to go."

* * *

Dara returned in time to eat with them and raved about the innovation of the apples.

"What you mean," Brenna corrected good-naturedly, "is that this meal has that good 'somebody else prepared this food' taste.'"

Dara looked down at her plate. Sybil and Tom exchanged a look that said they wondered if they should defend the girl, but almost immediately, her face came back up, beaming, like a flower turned towards the sun: "And it's delicious!" which made even Brenna laugh.

* * *

The meal over, and the dishes washed, they adjourned to the front room.

"Will you play 'The Spinning Song' for us, Mam?" Tom asked.

"I'm extremely rusty," she demurred.

"Please," Tom's voice was wistful, "I've missed hearing you play."

She sighed, much put-upon. "All right, if you insist." Brenna rose and began to remove the pictures and knickknacks from the tiny credenza which was one of the little room's few pieces of furniture. Dara left the room for a moment while Tom and his mother pulled the settee away from the base of the credenza, revealing foot pedals. It was a harmonium.

Dara came back with a little stool. Her aunt opened the instrument and seated herself before it, then cracked her knuckles dramatically. "Here goes," she said.

The piece was heavy on opposing octaves and chromatic scales; certainly, no music critic would have accused her of playing 'well.' She made a number of noticeable mistakes, and at one point stopped completely, saying, "Let's try that again," before playing the section over.

However, since none of the members of her audience could play at all, they were well satisfied, and applauded the older woman's efforts enthusiastically.

Brenna then called, "Dara?" The girl chose a piece from a little songbook, and Brenna accompanied her while she sang. Again, Dara would not be earning her living on the stage, but her audience was not particular. When Tom and Sybil had finished applauding, Dara said, "Tom?"

Tom, too, sang with his mother's accompaniment, but Sybil declined a turn, saying she was enjoying being the audience. Tom nodded and the three performers chose another song, which all three of them sang together. While this was going on, there was a knock at the hall door, which Sybil, as the only one not performing, went to answer.

At the door was a slender man, older than Tom, but a little shorter, who, as soon as the door was opened, joined in the song. The performers had been facing the wall so they could see the music book on the harmonium's built-in music stand. Hearing this new voice, they all turned to look, and Brenna's hands fumbled on the keys before she found her place again to finish out the verse.

The slender man had joined them at the instrument, and Tom had slipped his arm around the new man's shoulder. Only when the song had ended did they embrace.

The man was introduced to Sybil as Tom's cousin Donal.

"Are you ready to leave, Tom?" He asked. "Morning will come early, and you don't want to be late your first day."

"I'm ready," Tom said. He pointed to his suitcase, waiting next to the door.

Donal turned to his aunt. "Aunt Brenna, I'd like to invite you and yours to my place tomorrow night for the Aitin' of the Gander."

"What?!" Tom exclaimed. "We're not doing _that_, are we?"

"Of course we are," his cousin said, patiently.

"What for?"

"To introduce-"

"We can't introduce the bride's and groom's families," Tom interrupted. "Sybil's family isn't here."

"I'm Sybil's 'family,'" Brenna reminded him.

Tom raised an eyebrow. "_You_ want to be introduced to Donal? Fine. Mam, this is your nephew, Donal O'Neill. Donal, this is your aunt, Brenna Branson. Happy now? No need to cook a huge dinner for that." Tom smirked at them.

Donal scowled at his cousin, but when he spoke, it was his aunt he addressed. "Auntie, didn't you tell me I was to consider myself Tommy's father for the duration?"

"That's right," she agreed happily.

"In that case, I'd like to apologize for my _son_." He glared at Tom. "You may rest assured I will school him in proper behavior _just as soon as I get him home_; there will be no repetition of his discourtesy tomorrow night, I promise you." The menace underlying the smooth tones was unmistakeable.

Brenna had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from howling with laughter what time Tom gaped at his cousin.

"I'm sorry, Donny," Tom was already apologizing, afraid he had given real offense, "I never meant-"

"It's all right, Tommy," Donal reassured him, in a completely different tone of voice. "I'm just playing with you."

"Honestly, Donny, I don't even have a goose."

"Yes, you do, 'son.' And it's cooked. Or it soon will be."

Seeing her future husband's trapped expression, Sybil couldn't help but laugh.

* * *

The next day Sybil started her job search, making appointments with the potential employers she had written to from Downton, but she made sure to be back in plenty of time to prepare for the party. She was nervous about the huge numbers of Tom's relatives, but when she had mentioned the matter to Tom the day before, during one of the few moments when his mother was occupied with something else, he had told her not to worry about it, that everyone would know who she was, and that she only needed to concern herself with the people she actually met, since she wouldn't meet them all. Even he himself had never met Kevin Ryan. She had thought it a neat phrase. She had 'never met Kevin Ryan' either.

On the walk over to the O'Neill's flat that night, Brenna too addressed the issue: "Don't worry about remembering all the names. They're family, and they know who you are. Everyone you meet will be only too glad to tell you his name multiple times. And the others—"

"—there's no sense worrying about," Sybil finished for her. "I know. Tom says even he's never met Kevin Ryan."

Brenna gave her a funny look. Sybil wondered for a moment if she had used the colloquialism correctly, but then the older woman's brow cleared. "That's quite true," she agreed.

* * *

The party was in full swing, the goose not only cooked but consumed, relatives talking, laughing, and just generally milling around when the air was rent by a sudden shout: "Tommy!"

Tom came through the crowd to join them, a little girl perhaps two or three years old in his arms. When he saw the look on the face of the woman hotly confronting a very worried-looking Sybil, he kissed the little girl's forehead and set her down. "You'd better go play with the others, darlin'," he said softly.

The woman, perhaps a score of years older than Sybil, waited until the child had toddled away before addressing him. "Just what have you been saying about Kevin," she demanded.

Tom's brow furrowed. "Who says I said anything about Kevin?"

"Your _intended_," she informed him acidly.

Both of them turned to Sybil, who was by this time totally flustered. _'Is Kevin Ryan an actual person, then? Who __**is **__he?' _Clearly someone whose very mention disturbed both her fiancé and this woman.

"What did I say about Kevin, love?" Tom asked Sybil now. His tone was calm; he sounded like he just didn't remember what he might have said, not like he thought _she'd _said or done anything wrong.

"You…" Sybil took a deep breath, afraid she was saying the wrong thing. But it was the truth, so what else _could _she say? "You said you'd never met him."

"Oh," Tom said, remembering now. "I haven't." He turned to the woman. "What's wrong with that?"

"You haven't met him, so he's of no importance?" The woman was clearly both insulted and furious.

"No one's saying that, Pegeen—" Tom tried to sooth her.

Donal was suddenly next to them. "Pegeen, wait."

This caused _him_ to draw her fire. "Donny, I don't want to hear it—"

"No one in this family ever wants to hear anything!" He snapped back. Donal turned to Sybil, and asked, "Sybil, do you know who Kevin is?"

"I thought… " Donal was calm, his eyes and voice kind, and the others were at least listening now. Sybil's heart started to slow down. "I thought it was just an expression to mean 'you can't know everyone' like I'd say "Uncle Tom Cobley and all' to mean anyone and everyone."

Brenna was standing nearby, and Sybil saw her brow clear, as if she now understood their earlier conversation.

Donal nodded. "Kevin is Tom's brother."

Sybil was surprised. "He's never met his own brother? How can that be?" _'And what about the na-'_

Donal was still talking. "We held Kevin's American wake before Tommy was born."

"I'm sorry," Sybil said, saddened to have brought up a painful subject, though the others seemed wierdly indifferent to mention of the dead man, now that his identity had been revealed to her.

Donal continued, "And Pegeen is his sister."

_'What?!' _"But—"

"I _told_ her I was born Pegeen Ryan!"

"Ryan?" Sybil's confusion was obvious.

Brenna laughed suddenly. "It's my fault. Sorry, Sybil. My first husband's name was Jack Ryan."

* * *

The music and performances of this larger group were correspondingly superior to what had been on display in Brenna's flat last night.

Another change was that this time, when the call came to Tom, he got up to dance. To Sybil's eye, it looked similar to the reeling they did at Duneagle in Scotland before the war, but Tom was nowhere near as skilled as the ghillies. In fact, what he was doing looked very simple, and made his relatives laugh in amusement.

Donny got up and joined him. The little girl Tom had been carrying earlier was nearly jumping up and down in excitement, and Tom began to call to her, while continuing the simple steps, "A Aine, rince le linn, rince le linn!"

Her response was to run up and join them, proving it was a child's dance they did.

Pegeen McGrath née Ryan, leaned close to Sybil, "That'll get Tommy some points. That's David O'Neill's little girl dancing with them. He was yelling at Tommy before you got here."

"What about?" Sybil asked, worried it had been about her.

"I don't know," Pegeen admitted. "It was in Irish, and I don't speak it."

When the dance ended, Tom called to Pegeen to perform next. She sang a song, and even Sybil, who was not a connoisseur, recognized Pegeen's voice as amazingly strong and pure. When Tom's sister had finished, she called for Sybil to perform.

Sybil smiled, but shook her head. "I'm not much of a singer," she said.

"Everyone has a song," Pegeen told her.

"Not me," Sybil replied, regretfully.

"Yes, you do," Donal called. He was at the piano, and began to play.

Hearing the tune, Sybil laughed out loud. It was indeed her song. She rose and faced the crowd of Tom's relatives: "Tom Pearce, Tom Pearce, lend me your grey mare... " Sybil's husky voice rang out, sweet to Tom Branson's ears, "...for I want for to go to Widecombe Fair-"

Tom couldn't help it, he was singing with her, his voice, Sybil's, Donal's joined by those who knew the song, "with Bill Brewer, Jan Stewer, Peter Gurney, Peter Davy, Dan'l Whiddon, Harry Hawke, Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all."

* * *

Sybil had never been to a mass before, but on Sunday she was there, seated between Tom and his mother, to hear the wonderful words of the priest:

"I publish the banns of marriage between Lady Sybil Crawley and Mr. Tom Branson of this Parish. If any of you know cause or just impediment why these persons should not be joined in Holy Matrimony, ye are to declare it. This is the first time of asking."


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Note: **I have lost count of the number of times I rewrote this chapter.

**Disclaimer:** I'm not even a custodian, my dears, let alone an owner. These characters and their settings are the work of others. I hope I do not offend with my homage.

* * *

Tom's 'mentor' H.L. was back less than ten minutes after Tom had turned in his 'piece.'

"He says its too long. Cut out about a hundred words."

Tom accepted the rejected article and resisted the urge to tear it up. He was sick of looking at it, having already rewritten it twice, one of those times because it was 'too short.' "Which words should I cut?"

H.L. rolled his eyes. "The least important ones."

* * *

"Thank you for your interest, Nurse Crawley." The man looked again at the letter of reference Dr. Clarkson had given her. Sybil watched the man's tongue move against his cheek inside his mouth. "We'll certainly keep you in mind the next time we have an opening."

_'I bet you will,' _Sybil thought sourly, but her reply was polite all the same. "I appreciate your taking the time to see me, doctor."

He smiled at her, glad she was taking the refusal so well. She rose to go.

* * *

She now understood Gwen's frustration trying to find a secretarial post. _'If only someone would give me a chance, I could __**show **__them what I can do!' _But why should they, after all? They didn't know her; they didn't know Dr. Clarkson. And if they needed nurses, they could ask the catholic church. Sybil belatedly perceived the vast difference between offering one's services gratis to a hospital funded by one's own family, and actually trying to get paid work from strangers. Still, she was a long way from being beaten yet. Back on the street she checked the map Brenna had given her. There was plenty of time to try another place before it was time to return to the flat for lunch.

* * *

H.L. was back. "Aren't you done with that yet?"

"Yes, I've just finished it." Tom said.

"Will wonders never cease?" It was not a question. "Give it to Mr. E. then. The boss told me to tell you to get over to the Castle and find out what's going on."

* * *

They had set the wedding for the Wednesday following the third reading of the banns. Sybil wrote to Mary, enclosing the invitation with a card for the ceremony. The reply lay between the lovers on the settee: the Countess of Grantham's polite regrets on behalf of the three elder Crawleys, who were unable to attend due to illness, and a second letter from Lady Edith glorying in a verbatim chronicle of the family's discussion on the subject of which of them should 'lend countenance to this travesty of a marriage by lowering themselves to attend.' She and Lady Mary had 'drawn the short straws,' as she termed it.

"Fine!" Sybil declared in ringing tones, arms akimbo. "If that's how they want to play it—" she shook her head angrily. Tom smiled a little to see her drop earrings dance, a tiny consolation to set against the desolation delivered in the post. She was so lovely when she was angry. Or any time. He felt tears start to run down his face. _'Not now.'_

"If that's as much as his 'blessing' is worth, so be it! Mary and Edith will come, and our family here is around us, and— Tom, are you all right?"

"Grand."

Sybil left off pacing to sit down next to him. "You don't sound grand."

"I'm sorry." He couldn't stop the tears, they _would _fall, no matter how ashamed it made him. He wiped them away with his hands, but more fell to replace them. "God, Sybil, I apologize, I'll just—" he started to get up, to leave the room.

Sybil put her arms around him, to stop his flight. "Don't—" she crooned.

_'Don't cry? I'm __**trying **__not to!' _The only sound he actually made though was a sob.

But she wasn't telling him to stop crying. "Don't try hold it back, Tom. Let it out." She cuddled him close, stroked his back, kissed his hair. "It's all right to cry, sweetheart. I love you, and I'm here. Everything will be all right."

* * *

As Brenna opened the door, she called out teasingly, "Make yourselves decent, children, I'm comin' in!" She felt genially justified to see them spring guiltily up from the settee. At least they were fully clothed. But what had Sybil done to the shoulder of her blouse?

It was… _wet. _Yet the girl's eyes were… dry. Tom's… were brimming, and his crimson face was streaked with tears that were still wet. His mother counted the days until the wedding, when dealing with her idiot watering pot of a son would be Sybil's problem.

Tom had closed his eyes. Waiting.

When his mother failed to say her next line, the watery blue eyes opened again. "Say it, Mam." His voice was expressionless.

Brenna glared at him. "Sybil doesn't want to hear this." Her son just stared back at her. Sybil felt the air pulsing with their mutual anger. This was a very old quarrel.

"Would I like…" he started for her.

"Would you like me to give you a reason to cry, Tommy?" Brenna snapped.

He blew out a sigh, as though extinguishing a candle. "No, I wouldn't."

"Are you done?" Brenna asked, in a surprisingly mild tone.

"I hope so."

"Then go and wash your face."

He nodded acknowledgement, and obediently left the room to remove the 'evidence.'

When he had departed, Brenna turned to Sybil. "What's the matter with him?"

"My mother's written. My parents definitely aren't coming."

The Irishwoman considered this news. "That's why _he's _crying?"

Sybil shrugged. "I suspected they might not come. My sisters will come over, though."

"Your father won't try to stop them?"

"It appears not."

The older woman's mouth quirked up. "If it's just to be the two of them, why not ask them to stay here with us?"

Sybil smiled. "I'd like that."

"Do you think—" Tom was back in the kitchen doorway, face scrubbed clean.

"Do we think what?" his mother asked gruffly.

Tom bit his lip and swallowed. His tone was wistful. "Do you think they'll bring Anna with them?"

* * *

"Sybil," Brenna's voice said in the darkness of pre-dawn. "I can get you a day's work as a private duty nurse if you get up right now."

"Brenna? How—"

"Do you want the job or not?"

"Yes, of course."

"Then stop talking and get dressed. I'll tell you as we go."

* * *

The Wolseley was so ancient it actually had a horizontal engine. Tom had never worked on one before. He contemplated the motorcar, the reward being promised for success, and the likely penalty for discovery.

"Well," Natan asked. "What do you say?"

"I'll do it," Tom agreed. _'but please, Lord, let me not get caught.'_

* * *

"What did he say," Brenna asked eagerly.

"He said he'd do it."

She stirred sugar into her tea. "Do you think he can?"

Natan shrugged. "If God wills it."

"If his Lady finds out," Brenna warned, "there'll be the devil to pay."

"Well," Tom's boss replied, "in that case, we'll just have to keep some pitch hot, won't we?"

* * *

Sybil and Dara had been invited to dine that night at the O'Neills. Two things struck Sybil odd: Tom's hands were red, and there was a bar of pumice soap by the washbasin. When she asked her fiancé about these matters, he was evasive. When she pressed him, he said, "I was helping Mr. Engerski sort type."

A perfectly reasonable explanation: this was Wednesday night, and the **_Intelligencer_** came out on Thursday. Sybil wondered why she thought he was lying.

* * *

"Brenna," Sybil asked the following day, "have you ever known Tom to lie?"

The older woman smiled. "Is that a joke?"

"No, I'm serious."

"Sure. He's got no halo, Sybil. He lies just like the rest of us whenever the occasion seems to warrant it."

"What?!"

"Come on, Sybil. Haven't you ever lied to Tommy? We know you've lied to your father."

Sybil had the grace to avert her gaze. "I think he's lying to me."

"About what?"

"He told me he was helping sort type."

"Why wouldn't he be?"

"Do you think he might be working on cars?"

"Are you going to call off the wedding if he is?"

"Of course not!"

"Then you have three choices: ignore it, ask him, or check up on him."

* * *

On Sunday, Sybil attended her second-ever mass with her Irish 'family,' including her possibly lying-like-a-rug fiancé:

"I publish the banns of marriage between Lady Sybil Crawley and Mr. Tom Branson of this Parish. If any of you know cause or just impediment why these persons should not be joined in Holy Matrimony, ye are to declare it. This is the second time of asking."


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's Note: **_Obedientia Civium Urbis Felicitas_ [Happy is the city where the citizens obey.] –Motto of the City of Dublin

**Disclaimer:** I'm not even a custodian, my dears, let alone an owner. These characters and their settings are the work of others. I hope I do not offend with my homage.

* * *

The little tin of G. Washington brand 'Soluble Coffee Product' sat on the kitchen table between the two dissimilar women. The dark powder produced a beverage so profoundly unlike coffee that Sybil would not have guessed what it was supposed to be had she not seen the description on the little container. It was typical of her future mother-in-law to have found the stuff: an attempt to satisfy Sybil's expressed desire for coffee, when no one in Brenna's circles drank anything (as far as Sybil could tell) but tea, buttermilk, or porter.

"You don't have to do it you know," Brenna told her quietly.

_'What,'_ Sybil thought, _'drink this stuff?'_ She noticed the older woman had put so much milk and sugar in her cup she probably couldn't taste the 'coffee product.' Aloud Sybil replied only, "Do what?"

"Marry him."

The younger woman took a sip of her 'coffee' while she considered the best way to reply. In the calmest, politest, firmest tone she could produce, she said, "Brenna, I love your son, I _want_ to marry him, and I'm _going _to marry him. That is **final**. Do you understand?"

Surprisingly, the older woman smiled at her. "Do I understand that I'm never to bring this topic up again? Yes, _milady_, I understand."

Sybil blew on her 'coffee product' to cool it, and nodded.

* * *

Justice had turned her back on the city of Dublin. The irony of it appealed to the citizenry, even if the reality did not. Because of the location of the newspaper office, Tom approached Dublin Castle by way of the Gate of Justice, so named for the leaden statue of Justice (painted to look like stone) which stands on top of it.

From the street outside, Tom paused to consider the Lady's classically garbed back, and reflected that some 'jokes' are no more than the exact and literal truth. Natan had expressed the idea that this truth was what made the 'jokes' funny: "If we didn't laugh, we'd cry." True that.

Tom walked through the gate, and turned back to look up at the lady, just as he'd done the previous times he'd been sent here. Lady Justice wore no blindfold, and this morning a pigeon sat on one of the pans of her scales, making it tilt wildly. The leaden lady did not deign to look at the bird: the exact nature of what was being weighed in her balance concerned her not at all; she smirked instead at her drawn sword with an expression strongly reminiscent of Lady Grantham's maid Miss O'Brien, as if _Iustitia_ thought the justice the Irish deserved would be best delivered by the sword. Tom shuddered at the thought, but turned to go into the Castle, as he must.

* * *

Sybil was being driven mad by the search for work. This was impossible. Insane. How did _anyone _ever find work? She headed blindly away from the hospital office, took a wrong turn and found herself walking through one of the wards. She looked around the busy room to get her bearings, and caught the eye of a dark-haired young man in the lab coat of a doctor.

"Nurse!" he called to her. "Come over here."

Sybil looked around, and pointed to the breast of her gray nurse's uniform, as if to say, _'Me?' _He could not actually want _her. _No one wanted her.

"Yes, you! Are you a nurse? Get over here!" The tone of the voice would brook no refusal. Sybil came over to him obediently. "Hold your hand right here," he said, pressing down on a bandage. Sybil and the doctor got to work.

It was wonderful, like the old days. The young doctor was a whirlwind, moving from patient, to washbasin, to patient, dragging Sybil with him, or sending her hither and thither for supplies. The doctor was neither Irish nor English, could he be American? Something in his speech pattern reminded her of her mother. Sybil waited for someone to challenge her as she scrambled around at the doctor's bidding. No one did so; it appeared they all assumed she had come with him, just as he assumed she worked there.

He was a good doctor, she thought: quick, decisive, knew what he was looking at, and what he was going to do about it. When he spoke to her he used the command form almost exclusively, but he was gentle in his speech to his patients. Sybil was so grateful to be of use, she would not have cared had he sworn at her. When the emergency was past, and the young doctor at last allowed a pause for rest, Sybil moved to go.

"Are you off shift?" He checked his watch. "Did I catch you as you were trying to leave? I'm sorry, I didn't think, I just—"

"You just needed some help."

He nodded. "You're a good worker. When are you back on? I'm covering for Dr. McIntyre, so I'll be here all week. I'll look for you."

She smiled ruefully. "You won't find me, I'm afraid."

The doctor laughed. "You'll be hiding? Was I so terrible? I'm sorry. I don't mean to be."

Sybil smiled. "No, it's not that."

"What then?"

"I'm afraid I don't work here."

His head cocked in surprise. "Why'd you stay then? You could have told me to go to Hades; no one could have done anything to you."

She shrugged. "You needed someone."

"I appreciate it," the doctor told her, sincerity in the dark eyes and weirdly familiar, yet un-Irish, un-English tones. "If I were to offer you money for having stayed, would you be offended?"

"Are you from Wisconsin?" she asked, finally placing the accent.

The doctor was untroubled by the _non sequitur._ "Close. From Iowa."

"And are you offering me money?"

"Yes."

Sybil consulted how she felt about that. "No, I'm not offended."

He fished some coins out of his pocket, looked at them a moment, then handed them over. "What's your name?"

"Sybil Crawley. And yours?"

"Bill North."

* * *

At the Castle, Tom smiled at the clerk who habitually dealt with routine press inquiries and was therefore his regular contact. "Good morning, Stephen. It's glorious day outside."

Stephen scowled. "You again?"

Tom rounded his eyes at the older man. "You know the new man always gets the best jobs."

"Is that the line they're feeding you at the **_Intelligencer_**?"

"I'm extremely gullible," Tom confided happily. He pronounced this sentence as though his naïveté were an accomplishment of which he was modestly proud.

The clerk cracked a sour smile. "Then you'll have no trouble swallowing today's dose of propaganda."

* * *

On Tuesday, Sybil woke before dawn to find her future mother-in-law in the kitchen in a calico dress which was little better than a rag (if a clean rag), wolfing down oatmeal and strong tea at very unladylike speed. "You're up early," Brenna greeted her, between hurried mouthfuls.

"I could say the same for you," Sybil replied.

Brenna snorted. "You could say it, but if you did you'd be wrong: I'm late. There's food on the stove if you want some. I have to be out of here a half hour ago."

"Where are you going?"

"I've char work to do for Mrs. Butler."

"You're a _charwoman_?!"

Brenna made a face of distaste. "Not normally. But I can't find anyone to please the old battleaxe, and until I find another 'sacrifice' I'm stuck with doing for her myself."

"I could do it," Sybil offered.

"Oh, I doubt that very much," the older woman said, frankly.

"I could!" Sybil insisted.

Brenna frowned, irritated. "You won't let Tommy fix cars, but you want to scrub floors for a gray-haired Anglo-Irish she-devil who fancies herself Cromwell's mother? "

"_You're _doing it."

"Only because I've no choice."

"Well, now I'm giving you a choice."

"It's too late today; we'll see on Thursday." Brenna left her dishes in the sink for her niece to clean, while she left to attend to the less agreeable cleaning job she herself was sentenced to perform.

* * *

The offices occupied by the **_Irish Intelligencer_** were so small that the compositors and stonemen were confined to the same room, and ruled by the same supervisor, Mr. Engerski.

On Wednesday, this Pole once again commandeered Tom's services as an extra pair of hands in 'decomposing' because, as H.L. termed it when relaying the order to Tom, "You're marginally less useless to him than the rest of us."

Tom wasn't sorry. He found sorting type both restful and soothing, besides which, the ink on his hands would potentially cover a multitude of 'sins'.

"Tom Branson!" He looked up from the case to see Sybil smiling in the doorway. _He wasn't lying! He really does help sort type! _She was so relieved. Thank goodness Mrs. Branson had suggested Sybil check up on him.

Tom introduced her around, then showed her what he was doing.

"Can she read?"

"Mr. E.?" Tom asked, confused.

"Your Lady. Can she read?"

Sybil could answer for herself. "Yes, I can read."

Engerski addressed his 'apprentice': "Give it to her then, and I'll show you how to set type." Tom passed the galley he'd been working on to his fiancée, and showed her where to put the used furniture and type, then came back to Mr. E. who handed him a composing stick.

"It's not a race," the old printer told him. "I'll do a whole block in the time it takes you to do one stick, but I want you to concentrate for now on making sure you're putting in the correct letters and spaces. We'll worry about speed later. You won't save any time if you have to correct a dozen mistakes on proof. Understand?"

"Yes, sir," Tom agreed. He and Sybil both set carefully to work.

* * *

Edith and Mary were graciously pleased to accept Mrs. Branson's kind invitation to stay at her flat for the wedding. Their maid would accompany them, provided she felt able to be away from Mr. Bates for that long.

Their acceptance brought up an interesting question: where would the newlyweds spend their wedding night?

"Not in the boys' room at the O'Neill's flat," Tom responded, referring to his own current accommodation in not-entirely-mock horror.

Sybil looked startled by the suggestion, but Brenna just laughed. "I'd not serve the two of you such an ill turn as that," the older woman agreed. "I've had two wedding nights myself, so I have." She winked at the two young people with a comic leer, making them blush and laugh with her.

* * *

On Wednesday afternoon, Brenna and Sybil made their way to the Coombe. Brenna stopped and leaned her arms on the rickety counter of a wooden stall Sybil would not have gone within a mile of had she been alone. "Biddy Mulligan!" Brenna called to the proprietress. "What working dresses have you for sale?"

"None! Ye know well enough I don't sell clothes on Wednesday, woman! Come back on Saturday. And anyway, what's wrong with that rag ye have on?"

Actually, Brenna was dressed quite smartly again. "Not for me, you snaggle-toothed old witch! For this girl. And it's an emergency, so it is! We've old Mrs. Butler to do for, come mornin', and with three suitcases full of clothes, this poor gel has nary a thing fit to scrub a floor in!"

Biddy Mulligan stared. "Is that right, now?"

"It's every word of it true," Brenna told her solemnly.

"Well, we can't have that. You'd better come in, darlin'." The heavy-set gray-haired vendor opened the half-door and beckoned her customers into her sanctum to investigate her wares.

* * *

Old Mrs. Butler was fully as crotchety as Brenna had predicted. Fortunately, she was so taken with the idea of a titled noblewoman as her cleaning lady, she opted to chat to Sybil rather than yell at Brenna, so the older woman was able to get on with the job in relative peace, what time Lady Sybil kept their 'employer' distracted. The result was that they were free to leave far earlier than Brenna had estimated.

"I'm sorry I was so little help," Sybil apologized when the two women were back on the street.

"Who says? That's the fastest I've ever finished her place."

"But I didn't help you with the cleaning _at all_!"

"No, but you kept the old termagant occupied so _I_ could do it. Trust me, Sybil darlin', it's not nothing."

"Yes, but—"

"As our Tommy would say, from each according to her ability." For the second time in two days, Brenna winked at Sybil with a knowing leer.

* * *

Tom had done it. His relief was immense. Not only so he wouldn't have to explain his stained hands anymore, but because they were running out of time.

"Nice job," his boss praised, when shown the finished product. "It appears you've earned your reward."

Tom smiled at his boss. "Thanks. I appreciate it."

"Your Mam tells me you might need another favor as well."

"I do?"

"Indeed."

"And did she say what that might be?"

"She did. Do you know that old bookstore over by Harrigan's grocery?" Tom nodded. "Well, it just so happens…

* * *

On Saturday night, they dined at the McGrath's. Pegeen met the women outside and snuck them through to the kitchen so they could spy on Tom in the back bedroom, changing the napkin of one of his young cousins, telling the infant in soothing tones that it would soon be comfortable again, and that one day in the not too distant future it would be able to attend to these needs for itself as the bigger children did. The women smiled at each other and slunk off before he had finished, wandering out to the main rooms to join the others.

Sybil noticed one of the young men had set up shop as a craftsman, with mallet, pegs, long strips of cane, and a bucket of water, so he could replace the seat of a chair that had been torn by a too exuberant child. His dark head was bent over his work, but Sybil and several other admirers watched in mute fascination as the slender fingers did their delicate work, reweaving a seat for the broken chair. Something about the quick, sure movements of those clever fingers was… familiar. Had she met him? Sybil was still considering the question when her fiancé came and squatted next to the craftsman to engage him in conversation. The dark head lifted.

"Dr. North!" Sybil exclaimed.

"Nurse Crawley."

"You've met?" Tom asked.

"This is the doctor who commandeered me the other day."

"And now Widow Branson has commandeered me in return to fix this chair," the doctor explained.

"Tom," Sybil said, "does your mother know _everybody_?"

Tom opened his mouth, but Mam walked over to answer for herself: "Oh, come on, Sybil. You knew an American had to be in it somewhere. Where did you think the 'G. Washington Coffee Product' came from?"

After dinner, it required no effort at all to prevail upon the American doctor to sing: "Buffalo Gals, won't you come out tonight, come out tonight, come out tonight?" and though his Irish friends could not know it, it was to his own German-American English-teacher sweetheart back home in Chicago that the chorus was actually addressed: "Ain't cha, ain't cha, ain't cha gonna come out tonight and dance by the light of the moon?"

Bill North smiled at Nurse Crawley and her fiancé, but what the good doctor was thinking was, _'If Edna could hear me singing tonight, she'd be livid,'_ and thinking it, the doctor laughed.

* * *

Sunday morning found the Bransons, the O'Neills, the McGraths, and one Crawley were back at mass:

"I publish the banns of marriage between Lady Sybil Crawley and Mr. Tom Branson of this Parish. If any of you know cause or just impediment why these persons should not be joined in Holy Matrimony, ye are to declare it. This is the third time of asking."


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's Note: **_ 'Cause her fortune seems too high, _ _ Shall I play the fool and die? __Those that bear a noble mind _ _ Where they want of riches find, _ _ Think what with them they would do_ _ Who without them dare to woo… _ _ -from __**The Lover's Resolution, **__George Wither (1588 – 1667)_

**Disclaimer:** I'm not even a custodian, my dears, let alone an owner. These characters and their settings are the work of others. I hope I do not offend with my homage.

* * *

"Listen, Sybil, before your sisters arrive, I've been meaning to tell you something."

"Of course, please," Sybil said after waiting several moments, by way of encouragement, since the older woman had fallen silent.

"About your wedding night." To Sybil's amusement, her about-to-be mother-in-law was actually blushing, painfully.

To save the Irishwoman further embarrassment, Sybil offered, "You needn't, you know. Mama advised me of what I should expect before we left home."

"I'm guessing she didn't."

The flat contradiction mystified the English girl. "Brenna, I assure you—"

"Not that, exactly, of course she told you _that._"

"What then?"

"After you've… tendered… _the marital debt_ to one another, there is… umm… a possibility… that my son may… lose consciousness." A tiny smile flickered briefly across the crimson countenance.

Sybil pondered the matter. "He might fall asleep, do you mean?" she asked. "Surely most people do that, when together… at night?" The younger woman found that she herself had no immunity from self-consciousness when discussing _certain subjects._

"I don't mean fall asleep, as such. Pass out, more like. Just for a minute or two. But clean _gone_. At least, his father sometimes did, after we'd…" she couldn't finish that sentence, so went on to the next. "I just wanted to be sure you knew. In case it should happen. That you," she smiled, remembering," haven't _killed _him. He'll come around."

* * *

On the crowded dock, as had so often happened at the end of a long journey, she heard him before she saw him.

"Milady!"

_Ah, Branson, thank goodness, she was almost home, _Lady Mary thought, relieved. She scrutinized the crowd, the object of her quest being his comfortingly familiar Harrod's finery: stiff-peaked driving cap with goggles, and the tunic full of brass buttons the chauffeur seemed to take such pride in keeping polished to gleaming perfection, nevermind his socialist 'principles.' _But where was he? _

"Branson?" she called back, tentatively. "I can't see you."

"We're right here, Mary," her sister Sybil's husky alto advised her from quite close by. Mary located her youngest sister immediately; she had stepped forward to embrace their middle sister Edith.

Sybil was not alone. She had been accompanied to the dock by a respectably dressed (if obviously middle class) couple, consisting of a handsome matron of a well-preserved middle age and a young man. Lady Mary smiled automatically at her sister's friends, but half of her mind was still occupied with her search for the comforting safety represented by the Crawley family's long-time chauffeur.

He was smiling at her. The chauffeur. Branson. The young man… was Branson. _What had she been thinking? He wasn't the chauffeur anymore! Why had she been looking for his __**uniform**__?! _

"I'm not so easy to see without the brass buttons, am I, milady?" he teased. "And all this time we thought they were just for show."

Lady Mary stared at her former servant. She remembered the conversation. They had fallen into a discussion of servants' liveries as a subset of the fashions of posh people as the result of her noticing and commenting on the fact that one of his uniform tunics had a distinct break in the line of brass buttons at the flap, while the other contained two fluid, symmetrical, unbroken lines of buttons. They had wondered collectively what the practical use of these shiny buttons could possibly be as part of a chauffeur's uniform. None, they had decided then, dubbing them just a decoration. Quite wrongly, as it now appeared.

"It's taken some getting used to for me as well, milady," Branson admitted frankly. "I feel different in these clothes."

Lady Mary merely nodded, uncertain what, under the circumstances, it might be appropriate for her to say.

Branson motioned towards the older woman, who had been content to watch the two with interest throughout the preceding exchange.

"Milady, I'd like to be allowed to present my mother, Mrs. Brenna Branson, with whom you and Lady Edith will be staying." Lady Mary nodded consent and greeting. "Mam, it's my privilege to make you acquainted with Sybil's oldest sister, Lady Mary Crawley."

Lady Mary smiled at her hostess. "Mrs. Branson, thank you for having us come to stay."

"You honor me with your presence, milady," the older woman replied formally.

"Please, Mrs. Branson, we're about to be family." Lady Mary said, "Call me 'Mary.'" She eyed her youngest sister as she pronounced this sentence, and was rewarded by Sybil's beaming approval.

The smile in the Irishwoman's eyes acknowledged the condescension with an amusement that was a kind of condescension of its own. "Lady Mary," Brenna amended.

"Just 'Mary,'" Mary told her quickly.

One chestnut eyebrow rose. "Well, Just Mary, in that case, you must call me 'Just Brenna," the teasing tone however, failed to completely cover what was obviously a real warmth and pleasure.

Tom had watched them, wistfully pleased with the way they seemed to accept each other, but now was distracted by Lady Edith nudging him both suggestively and impatiently. He laughed, turning to her. "Milady, I beg leave to present to you my mother, Mrs. Brenna Branson." Lady Edith nodded far more regally than her older sister had done. Branson turned to his mother, grinning broadly. "Mam, this is my sister Edith."

Lady Mary gaped at the outrageous introduction, what time Brenna smiled at the blonde girl quizzically, Sybil laughed out loud, and Edith _shoved _her 'brother' hard enough to displace him from the spot where he'd been standing by several inches.

"I'd be interested to know just how this has come about," Brenna told either Edith or Tom, or possibly both, "but if you're my daughter, milady, you'd better call me 'Mam' as you've heard your 'brother' do."

Edith beamed. "Mam. And I'm Edith," she confirmed happily.

To Lady Mary's continued astonishment, the former chauffeur turned next to introduce Anna. "Mam, I'd like to make you acquainted with my friend, Mrs. John Bates. Anna, this is my mother, Mrs. Brenna Branson."

"Mrs. Bates."

"Mrs. Branson."

Lady Mary did not know what she found more surprising: that her maid was being introduced to Sybil's future mother-in-law, or that the two women should choose to maintain the formality of titles and last names, when the others were all now on a first name basis. But then, Anna and Branson were… equals… weren't they?

* * *

Sybil had written at length about exactly what kind of accommodation her sisters were to expect, and Lady Mary was anxious to behave 'properly' in this unaccustomed milieu.

Branson had (by some arcane procedure known only to professionals) contrived to procure the ladies' cases: they had brought only one each, plus Anna's bag, which the maid carried herself.

Tom retained Lady Mary's bag with a smiling naturalness that brooked no refusal. Sybil and Edith were both attempting to carry Edith's case. Brenna finally said that if they couldn't share their toy she'd take it away from them and carry it herself. After eying her adopted 'mother' to gauge the seriousness of the threat, Edith released the suitcase to Sybil.

"But I can take it as soon as you're tired," she told her sister.

Branson had dropped back to speak quietly to Anna. What the two servants, or rather, the former servant and still current servant said to each other Lady Mary was too far away to hear.

Sybil and Edith were chattering happily together, and Mrs. Branson was asking Mary herself about her acquaintances in Ireland. Mary had several, and named them. The older woman nodded at the upper class Anglo-Irish names, and after one of them laughed and said, "I know her!" then, when Mary's gaze sharpened on the Irishwoman enquiringly, amended, "Not socially," with a knowing wink.

Sybil relinquished the suitcase to Edith and came forward to speak to Mary, while Mrs. Branson fell back to converse with Edith. When they finally arrived at Brenna's building, Lady Mary discovered that her suitcase was now being carried by Mrs. Branson herself, and that Tom had disappeared.

"He had to go back to work," his mother explained. "He'll be back with us in time for dinner, then after that we've been invited to a 'musical evening' at my nephew David O'Neill's place."

As was proper, Lady Mary Crawley nodded agreement to her hostess' arrangements.

Upstairs in Brenna's flat, Dara took charge of both Anna and the suitcases, then served tea to the Crawley sisters and her 'mistress' in the 'front room.'

Brenna had decided she and Mrs. Bates would now share the 'spare' room, so as to allow the sisters the use of her larger bedroom for the duration.

"Like being in the nursery again," Edith opined, with evident delight.

_Which, _Lady Mary thought but did not say, _when one considers what life was like for us in the nursery, is an odd thing for her to be happy about._

* * *

Dinner was not only served early by Downton standards, it was served in the kitchen. Sybil had of course warned them, so Mary was not surprised to be eating in the kitchen. What did surprise her was the number of place settings on the small table: seven. Three of them, Brenna and Branson…

"Should we wait for the others?" Mary asked.

"What others?" Brenna responded, motioning them to the table. Mary glanced at Branson, who had returned as promised. The former chauffeur looked worried, and Mary wondered why.

"Come on, Anna," Dara called.

Anna stepped out of the bedroom into the kitchen, and she and Branson both looked to Lady Mary for her decision. Sybil and Edith, who had been discussing food, flowers, and other wedding arrangements sensed the tension and stopped speaking to look at their sister as well. Lady Mary Crawley's eyes met those of her hostess. Unlike her son, Brenna was not worried. She was merely interested to see how this very elegant upper class cleean was going to react to being asked to sit at table with her maid.

Dara, oblivious, set serving plates and bowls on the table, then frowned at the diners, who were all still standing. Forgetting for the moment that she was a 'servant' and not the hostess, Tom's cousin snapped, "What's wrong with you lot? Sit down and eat before it gets cold! We've to be at David and Evleen's at half past!"

Those who were able smiled at the Irish girl, and Lady Mary motioned Anna to sit. "Think of it like the Servants' Ball," she advised the maid.

"Thank you, milady." Mrs. Bates was therefore the first of the group to sit down.

* * *

The meal was naturally much simpler than those served nightly at Downton Abbey, yet nonetheless, the Crawley sisters were pleasantly surprised to find the meal both elegant and tasty. The main entrée consisted of fresh salmon filets in a delicate crust of very finely chopped hazelnuts.

"This is really excellent!" Lady Edith praised her hostess exuberantly. She glanced uncertainly from Brenna to Dara and back, wary (like any good aficionado of _Pride and Prejudice_) of giving offense by assuming her hostess to have been the cook.

"Auntie prepared the fish," Dara explained. "I don't think she trusts me with it yet."

Tom smiled gently at his mother. "Still hoping to make us wise at this late date, Mam?"

Brenna's mobile mouth had formed her classic not-really-amused T. "I'm far too old to try to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear… but a leather purse, I might have a go." This remark left her lips pursed as she gazed back at her son.

To the complete and utter astonishment of all three Crawley sisters, the former chauffeur put his thumb into his mouth and bit it. He removed the digit to say, "I don't think it's working, Mam. I still want to marry Sybil. How did you test this fish for doneness? Perhaps you should try?" He motioned inexplicably, apparently at _her_ thumb.

"Or maybe someone else took the first bite," his mother growled.

"Possibly. Anyone feel any different?" He smirked at the four bewildered Englishwomen, his highly diverted cousin, and his irate mother.

Hesitantly, Sybil offered, "I still want to marry you, Tom, if that's what you mean."

Tom shouted with laughter, while his mother frowned at Sybil, then again at her son. "You're lucky I've no switch in this flat, boyo."

Tom grinned down at his plate. "I know it."

The baffled English girls looked at each other. Anna turned to Dara. "What was all that about?"

"You've not heard the story then? Of Finn MacCool and the Salmon of Knowledge?" She could see that none of the Englishwomen had. She looked to Brenna for permission, then began, "You see, nine hazelnut trees were growing around The Well of Wisdom…"

* * *

The musical evening was a sort of peace offering, Donal had explained to his aunt. Since the day the couple arrived in Ireland, David had been riding his cousin Tom hard on the subject of 'Good Irishmen should marry good Irish girls.'

To Brenna this seemed odd, since David had been involved in Tommy's search for work before the couple even left England, and Brenna herself had personally told David which way the wind blew in that regard.

"Nevertheless," Donal said, "that seems to be what they've been arguing about."

"Seems?" Brenna asked.

"As near as I can tell. They do their arguing in Irish, and mine isn't that good. Whether Tommy himself understands half of what David yells at him I couldn't tell you, and I doubt Tommy would. At any rate, he wouldn't tell _me_, and believe me, I've asked him. Repeatedly."

Brenna left it alone, chalking it up to the general inexplicable idiocy of men, as long as everyone behaved around _her. _Which they generally did. So she had no fear of any unpleasantness in taking her English guests to her nephew's home.

* * *

The Musicale differed from a normal evening in that the performers had been selected in advance. After dinner, all seven diners (including Dara because she was David's sister, and Anna because she was Tom's friend and Brenna considered it ridiculous to leave the poor woman at the flat on her own) arrived promptly at David's flat.

David's daughter Aíne ran up to greet her cousin.

"A Thomáis!"

"A Aíne," Tom picked the girl up and settled her against his hip. "A bheidh tú ag canadh dúinn?"

"Tá mé ag canadh," the girl confirmed happily. Then, "labhairt Béarla," she warned him.

"Speak English, Tom," David said to his cousin, walking up to the group.

Tom flushed, embarrassed, but cognizant that he had indeed been rude to speak in a language the others did not understand. "I asked Aíne if she was singing tonight," he repeated for their benefit, eying his cousin.

"Singing," the little girl told them for herself, still safely snuggled in her older cousin's arms. Her hazel eyes rounded at her father. "I _told_ Tom speak English."

"I heard you," David assured her calmly, ruffling her hair.

She nodded, glad he wasn't angry.

"Come and sit," he told his aunt and her English guests, "the others are here," and shepherded the group inside to be introduced.

* * *

The performances were good, which wasn't a surprise to Lady Mary, since the performers had presumably been selected to impress them. Near the end though, she was surprised to see a stir nearby, and Branson getting up to sing.

There was no accompaniment. As several others had done, he sang old style, a capella:

_"When a man's in love he feels no cold_ _Like I not long ago…"_ It was a traditional ballad, but Branson did not sing the traditional words. Instead, he sang the story of his courtship of Sybil, detailing the actual unfolding of events in such away that none of his hearers were in any doubt that this marriage was a love match in the truest sense of the word.

As she listened, Lady Mary reflected that there was _no way _Sir Richard Carlisle would ever get up in front of a group of people and sing of his love for _her. _Her mind flashed on the bittersweet remembrance of Matthew singing "If you were the only girl in the world" with her at the talent show during the war, and so by degrees her mind worked its way around to consideration of the brief exchange she had overheard back at the flat as they were getting ready to come here tonight.

_"Tommy, why are you still calling Mary 'milady'?"_

_There had been a short pause after Brenna's question. "I don't have permission to use Lady Mary's name," she heard Branson reply softly. _

_"But she said—" _

_"To you, Mam, yes, she gave permission to you, but not to me." _

_"I'll talk to her," his mother offered. _

_"Please don't, Mam. It's between her and me. And it is for __**her **__to decide what she wants me to call her. I'm so grateful she came at all. It's more than most of the others are doing. I'll gladly call her 'milady' forever, if that's what she wants."_

Was that what she wanted? She listened to her soon-to-be brother-in-law sing, saw the way he looked at her sister, saw the way he was looking at _her—_

_"I know your parents won't forget_, a_h, but surely they'll forgive—" _

And she knew suddenly what she wanted.

_"So from the soul I am resolved_ a_long with you I will live."_

* * *

As the gathering broke up at the end of the night, Tom came over to say he and Donal would be escorting the ladies back to Brenna's flat. He looked at Lady Mary. "We'll be ready in a few minutes, milady."

"Tom," Lady Mary replied, very deliberately. "You have permission to use my name."

Branson blinked at her in the sudden unexpectedness of it. Then, like watching a sunrise, she saw the blush rise on his pale cheeks like the first red fingers of the dawn, suffusing the gray face of the pre-dawn sky until gradually, gradually the clear blue eyes were filled with light, like the joy that 'comes in the morning,' and lips that had pronounced with reverence fifty thousand _Ave Maria_s enunciated, for the first time with sweet permission: "Mary."


	7. Chapter 7

**Author's Note: **"Silence is the perfectest herald of joy. I were but little happy if I could say how much. Lady, as you are mine, I am yours." –**_Much Ado about Nothing, _**Act II, Scene One,_ William Shakespeare_

**Disclaimer: **I'm not even a custodian, my dears, let alone an owner. These characters and their settings are the work of others. I hope I do not offend with my homage.

* * *

Lady Sybil would not be wearing a dress. Her dark blue skirt had been pressed into service, topped by a high-necked blouse of crocheted lace on loan from her Irish mother-in-law. Her dark hair would be covered by a chapel veil of sky blue… _though they would not actually be in the chapel, they would be just outside the doors of the sanctuary, in order to preserve the sanctity of that holy place from the unclean spectacle of the union of a Roman Catholic with a member of the Church of England. _Sybil smiled. _God would see them, God would join them, even if they weren't at the altar._

Lady Mary and Lady Edith considered the proposed ensemble, where it lay on the bed.

"Why blue?" Edith asked.

"It's supposed to be for St. Patrick, 'St. Patrick's blue,' Tom called it." Sybil said.

"I thought the Irish wanted everything green," the blonde girl objected uncertainly.

"Not for a wedding," Sybil told her middle sister. "I'm reliably informed the fairies will carry me off if I wear green on my wedding day."

"Will you wear a tiara?" Mary asked doubtfully.

Sybil wondered where her sister thought they would get one.

"Of course she'll have a crown," Brenna told them, walking in on the conference. "Of wildflowers."

Edith looked interested. "Who's making it?"

"Tommy is." Seeing the English girls stare, the Irishwoman continued, "Don't worry. He's quite good at it. He used to make them for me all the time when he was a boy."

"Is that the tradition here?" Mary eyed Sybil's mother-in-law of tomorrow askance. "For the groom to make the bride a wreath of flowers for the wedding?"

Brenna snickered. "No. It _never _happens. The bride's best friend makes it."

"So why is Tom doing it?" Edith asked. "We're here, after all," she continued suggestively.

Brenna shook her head. "No, you're her sisters. Tommy says _he's _her best friend."

Sybil thought about that. "I do believe he's right."

* * *

The Crawley sisters had insisted it would be bad luck for Tom to see Sybil on Tuesday evening, so the ladies were left to amuse themselves. On learning that Edith played the pianoforte, Brenna suggested she might like to try the harmonium, so after dinner, the furniture and knickknacks were again rearranged to allow the women to open the instrument. Sybil and Mary sat on the little settee conversing, what time Brenna and Edith fiddled with the sheet music… Anna and Dara were presumably communing on the mysteries of servanthood in the kitchen or bedroom.

Eventually, Edith sat down to play, but was profoundly unsuccessful: she could not work the foot pedals properly, so the sound faded in and out.

"Push down with your left foot all the way, without pressing on the right pedal **at all.** Then lift the left foot back up all the way. Now press down with your right foot all the way, and not your left at all. Then bring the right back up and repeat."

Edith persisted (though not at all successfully) until both women were laughing.

"This is worse than learning to drive," Edith chortled.

"Let's try it this way." Brenna sat down on the floor, reaching around Edith's legs to get at the pedals and began to work them with her hands. This worked better, but was still difficult: she was used to working them with her feet. Finally, she braced her back against the settee, and (still sitting on the floor) worked the pedals with her feet, while Lady Edith crouched over the older woman to use the keyboard.

This arrangement gave the most consistent sound, only marred by their laughter. Mary and Sybil looked on in amusement, and when Edith had finished, and turned around, she saw that Anna and Dara were looking on from the doorway. Brenna, still on the floor, craned her neck around to look at all of her guests and her niece. "I'll bet you never dreamed you'd meet with such elegant hospitality at Tommy's mother's, did you, ladies?" She winked and laughed.

* * *

The day was perfect: the sun shone bright and warm, and the dew on the grass had dried, leaving the fresh scents of earth, grass, and flowers for the city dwellers who had taken refuge in the park. An old woman watched as the young man and his tiny daughter wandered from one stand of wildflowers to another, both of them very intent on the project of creating a wreath of flowers. The child would run forward first to examine the blossoms on offer, to smell them, to look at their colors against the sky blue of her skirt. The man followed her more slowly, considering her finds, accepting some of the blooms, then adding them carefully to the braid of stems taking shape in his hands. Their intensity seemed curiously unsuited to their lighthearted task… and the little girl… _already wore_ a crown of flowers. The garland the young man was creating must be for someone else.

They called to each other as they worked. "A Thomáis!" The little girl pointed to a group of flowers. Not her father then, if she was calling him by name.

The young man looked, but shook his head, and pointed to some others a short distance away. "Iad siúd bláthanna bána." [Those white flowers.]"

She brought the flowers, and his quick slender fingers added them rapidly into the floral wreath.

"Beidh sí a bheith ina Bride álainn." [She will be a beautiful bride.] The little girl told him.

"Beagnach álainn mar is tú, a Aíne." [Almost as beautiful as you, Anne.]

"Fhéadfadh a bheith agat seacht mhac." [May you have seven sons.]" The girl's tone was grave. The old woman didn't bother to bite back her smile as she eavesdropped shamelessly.

"Má ní mór dúinn ach páiste amháin, agus tá sí ina iníon atá cosúil leat, Beidh mé a bheith go maith ábhar." [If we have only one child, and she is a daughter like you, I will be quite content.]"

* * *

Tom delivered the wreath shortly before noon. To make sure he would not accidently see Sybil, Tom stayed back at the turn of the stairs while Aíne knocked on Mam's door.

"Come in here a minute, Tommy," Mam called, then he heard her say, back into the flat, "You ladies keep Sybil out of here until he's gone."

Branson came in and gave his mother the wreath. They were alone, Aíne having gone back to see Sybil, Dara, and the English 'miladies.'

"Are we ready, Mam?" he asked, but his voice came out as a whisper.

Brenna smiled. "Save for my blessing. Kneel."

Tom moistened his lips as if to say something, then thought better of it, sank to his knees, and bowed his head. Very lightly, his mother's hands came to rest on his hair, shiny clean, and innocent of pomade, now that he was a journalist and no longer a servant. He felt a profound stillness, as if he were in church, praying silently, without words.

For a long moment, Mam said nothing. Then, very quietly, very intensely, she addressed her maker and his: "Lord, this is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased. Look kindly on him, and on his chosen bride, light of his life, song of his heart. May he always walk near you, and feel your presence with him, your understanding, your help, and your love. May he always lend a hand to help others, and find a hand when he needs help in return. May he always feel his strength rise to meet his need. May hope never abandon him to despair. May he always have work to do, food to eat, a reason to arise each morning, and a heart willing to serve. May he always love, and be loved in return."

She removed her hands from his head, and left him to walk over to the holy water fount next to the door, dipped her fingers it, then returned. " Lord, Blessed Mother, Sweet Jesu, please give Tom and his bride your blessing as well, on this, their wedding day." She made the sign of the cross on her son's forehead, the blessed water and oil on her fingertips wetting his skin. "In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, Amen."

Tom, still kneeling, looked up at his mother, and for once, the tears brimming in her son's blue eyes did _not _make her angry.

* * *

They stood just outside the doors of the sanctuary, Tom on the Epistle (Joseph) side, Sybil on the Gospel (Mary) side.

"Tom Branson, wilt thou take Sybil Crawley, here present, for thy lawful wife, according to the rite of our holy Mother the Church?"

"I will." He sounded strangely calm.

"Sybil Crawley, wilt thou take Tom Branson, here present, for thy lawful husband, according to the rite of our holy Mother the Church?

"I will." Her husky voice was pitched to carry. This, her tone said, was what she wanted.

Father Cornelius bade them join their right hands.

"I, Tom Branson, take thee, Sybil Crawley, for my lawful wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part."

"I, Sybil Crawley, take thee," she smiled, "Tom Branson, for my lawful husband, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part."

Father Cornelius lapsed into Latin. "Ego conjugo vos in matrimonim, in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.

He sprinkled them with Holy Water, then blessed the ring, the clasped gloves concealing the enameled red heart under golden fingers and palms. "Adjutorium nostrum in nomine Domini." [Our help is in the Name of the Lord.]

Tom had helped Sybil learn the responses. "Qui fecit caelum et terram." [Who made heaven and earth.]

After several more exchanges in Latin, the priest returned to English. "Let us pray. Bless, O Lord, this ring," _'odd looking thing that it is,' _the priest thought in an aside to himself, "which we bless in Thy name, that she who shall wear it, keeping true faith unto her spouse, may abide in Thy peace and in obedience to Thy will, and ever live in mutual love. Through Christ our Lord."

"Amen."

Father Cornelius sprinkled the ring with holy water in the form of a cross, then handed it to Tom. Tom took Sybil's left hand in his own left hand, then used his right to slide the ring a tiny distance onto Sybil's thumb. His mind harkened back to the rosary he'd prayed the night she'd left him at The Swan Inn, remembered sliding the chaplet ring onto his own thumb, thinking about this day…_someday…_**now.** _Right now._ His heart expanded to fill his chest, pounding with a staccato rhythm, so he could hardly hear the sound of his own voice. "In the name of the Father," he removed the ring from her thumb, and slid it just a tiny bit of the way onto her index finger, licking his lips at the same time, "and of the Son," the ring eased off her index finger and just barely onto her middle finger, her hand was beautiful, and beautifully manicured, "and of the Holy Ghost." Tom swallowed, then slid the ring onto her ring finger, _all the way_ onto her ring finger, to where her finger joined the hand. "Amen," he whispered, his breath leaving him. _It was done. _

"Confirm, O God," the priest implored, "that which Thou has wrought… Save Thy servants…"

"Who hope in thee…"

"Be unto them, Lord, a tower of strength… Let us pray. Look down with favor, O Lord, we beseech Thee, upon these thy servants… that they who are joined together by Thy authority may be preserved by Thy help; through Christ our Lord. Amen."

Respectful silence greeted the end of the rite. Only after they stepped out of the vestibule (where the ceremony for this mixed marriage had been held) and into the afternoon sunlight, were the newly married couple showered with both flower petals and applause.


	8. Chapter 8

**Author's Note: **A gloomy guest fits not a wedding feast._ –Friedrich Schiller_

**Disclaimer: **I'm not even a custodian, my dears, let alone an owner. These characters and their settings are the work of others. I hope I do not offend with my homage.

* * *

The bridal party and all the wedding guests (save only the matrons tasked with preparations for the feast) processed by the longest possible route from the church to the home of Donal and Eileen O'Neill, who were still acting in the capacity of the 'family' of the groom, since Brenna's flat would never hold even those who had crowded into the vestibule of the church to witness the ceremony, let alone those friends and relatives now converging to celebrate the newly solemnized marriage with food and drink, music and dance. In contrast, the matrons hustled along together by the shortest possible route to be certain everything was prepared for the wedding couple, their invited guests, and any random strangers the wedding drag (in its role of nuptial pied piper) managed to pick up as it wended its meandering way along through the city streets. No one would be turned away from the festal board this night.

As she walked, Lady Sybil kept glancing over at her bridegroom, restraining her steps to the sedate pace set by her husband, but unable to restrain her smile. Sometimes her glance surprised his looking her way, and whenever this happened, his left hand, in which her right hand was clasped, gave hers a gentle squeeze. Once she grinned and held up her left hand to rub her wedding ring with a teasing thumb. Tom leaned over to kiss her again, much to the delight of their multitudinous escort.

At last, having made as many twists and turns as were conceivably possible, and having ventured down every side street Donal and David O'Neill deemed safe (since they had been strictly enjoined by Aunt Brenna to make the journey last as long as they could), and having picked up about half the city of Dublin in their wake, Mr. and Mrs. Tom Branson at last arrived at the O'Neill flat, to be met at the door by a beaming Brenna, who, as her new daughter-in-law drew even with her, smote the girl in the forehead with a square of something brown she held in her hand. Sybil, utterly flabbergasted and mouth agape, smelled the sharp pong of whiskey, and put up a hand to feel the sticky remains of something coarse and crumbly on her astonished fingers. She drew them back down to see cake and currants! About half the broken slice of wedding cake was still in her grinning mother-in-law's hand, and the balance (in large chucks including more pieces of whiskey soaked fruit and peel) had fallen to the floor. The spectators cheered.

Brenna grabbed her daughter-in-law and pulled her into a rough embrace. Released as suddenly as she'd been attacked, Sybil said, "Wha—"

"Now we'll be friends for life!" Brenna declared, with evident satisfaction.

Sybil looked to her groom.

"You look unbelievably beautiful with your mouth open and wedding cake stuck to your head." He chuckled.

"Tom—" He stopped his bride's questions with a kiss, not sure he was equal to explaining what had just happened. He released her and pulled back to see how she was doing.

The English girl had still not recovered. "But—"

"Sybil!" Brenna exclaimed. "I love you. Are we friends?" she demanded.

"We are," the English girl confirmed.

Brenna leaned close to kiss her cheek. "And we now we always will be," the Irishwoman explained.

* * *

Eileen appeared from the kitchen with a bowl and two spoons. She handed one spoon to the bride (who had wiped the remains of the cake off her head with her laughing husband's handkerchief) and the other to the groom, then held out her bowl. Sybil watched Tom to see how to proceed. He took a healthy spoonful of the stirabout, smiled at his bride, and put the symbolic food in his mouth. He swallowed, then mouthed, '_Now you,' _ but without sound. Sybil took a spoonful of the porridge and ate it. Golly, and she had thought Dara's oatmeal porridge was salty. "One!" the crowd yelled as she swallowed. Tom dipped his spoon a second time, drawing it back heaped, and his wife followed suit. "Two!" yelled the crowd. The spoons of the wedding couple made a third trip to the bowl. Sybil wondered for a moment if they would have to eat it all. There must be twenty spoonsful in the huge bowl. "Three!" Mercifully, Eileen retrieved her spoons and took the bowl away.

"But you can always have more, if you'd like, love, for now we'll never go hungry," he winked, and she smiled back.

Brenna emerged from the kitchen with a tray on which she displayed for the crowd two small smoked fishes about the size of chubs or small trout, and five round loaves of what Sybil recognized as soda bread. Mrs. Branson set down the tray on a table before her, then raised her hands for silence.

"All of you are our family or our friends, even those of you we've only just met." She winked at some unfamiliar faces who smiled back at her, sure of their welcome. "Look around at how many of us there are, gathered here today to celebrate the joining of my son Tom with his darlin' Sybil, and know that your presence honors us, and blesses the union of these two fine young people. Now, to feed this mob will take a powerful lot of food, so as our dear Lord Jesus did for the five thousand, we here bless these loaves and fishes, and pray that on this day and every day this couple, and all those here assembled will never lack for food to give to those at their table."

Brenna picked up the tray of loaves and fishes once more, and pivoted with it in a semi-circle to show its contents to the crowd, then set it down again, making a tiny gesture to her son, so he and his bride would draw close. Brenna offered the blessing, which she reckoned had been the one used by her Lord: "Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who bringeth forth bread from the earth." She broke off a piece of one of the loaves and ate it, then broke off pieces for Sybil and Tom, followed by pieces of one of the fish, which the three of them also ate.

She turned to the crowd. "And now, the feast." Whereupon, the women began bringing food from the kitchen in platters, baskets, and bowls, which they set out on the tables for the guests.

* * *

Lady Edith was astounded by both the multitude of the guests, and the quality and abundance of the food. Who was paying for all this? These people were servants? Impossible! The tables groaned with breads, scones, crackers, butter, cheeses, paté, spinach, mushrooms, oysters, prawns, mussels, salmon, chicken, mutton, ham, and beef! Biscuits, pastry, and trifle! Never in her life had she seen this much food at a wedding reception. Tea, punch, porter, whiskey, buttermilk, and mead flowed like a river. Gracious, it must have cost a fortune! She would have to rethink her ideas about the financial resources of her brother-in-law and his family, if they were capable of putting on a spread like this one.

And she _loved Ireland! _She had, in fact, always enjoyed her family's trips to the island, but this! This was a dream come true. She adored being introduced by Tom as his sister, his easy familiarity in their now officially sanctioned rôles as brother and sister, and the unquestioning way his relatives accepted not only Sybil, but _her_. Oddly, though the day was all about Sybil and Tom, she felt that these people, these strangers to her, actually cared! Ireland really must be Heaven. She was _so _glad Papa had not prevented their coming. She would never forget this day.

* * *

Tom had been talking to some of his colleagues from the newspaper but broke off abruptly. "Seth!" he yelled, and was off at a run to a young man newly arrived and just entering the room. He threw himself into the man's arms, to be met with an equally fervent bear hug. They pounded on each other's backs for a moment, then pulled apart by apparently mutual consent. "Oh, my God, Seth! How did you get here! Were you at the ceremony?"

"I was that," the man grinned. "And you too wrapped up in Father, Son, and Holy Ghosting the girl," he mimed putting a ring on and taking it off thumb, index and middle fingers, "to even notice your own blood kin!"

"Oh, my God!" Tom exclaimed again. "Where have you been? When I asked Mam said she didn't know!"

"Sure, she didn't, but no one can hide from her for long."

The bride had joined them, accompanied by Lady Edith. "Sybil, Edith, this is my brother Seth, Lord of Chaos. Seth, this is my wife, Sybil," he smiled briefly, "and my sister Edith." Sybil reflected that her husband's habit of introducing her sister as his own might have caused a lot of confusion if the bulk of the crowd hadn't been composed almost entirely of Tom's relatives, who already knew everyone else, and therefore knew also who all the English 'miladies' had to be as well.

"Sybil," Seth greeted the bride, then to Edith, "A dheirfiúr."

Lady Edith's brow contracted. "Tom calls me that sometimes, too."

Seth Branson shrugged. "If you're Tommy's sister, then you must be _my _sister, too."

"Why did Tom call you 'Lord of Chaos'?"

Seth laughed. "When we were boys, Edith, I got Tommy here in so much trouble," he patted his older brother's arm fondly, "that it's a wonder he can still walk."

Tom smiled at the younger man. "Mam's lost her switch," he confided happily.

Seth grinned. "Dara wrote me. You'd didn't think I'd have dared to come here else, did you? Did Kiaran make it over?"

Tom shook his head. "He's in Liverpool, but his boss doesn't like him any too well, I understand. He didn't think it would be a smart idea to leave."

"What about the others?"

"I'm hoping Sybil and I will get out to see Nuala on our honeymoon, but Pegeen's here, of course…"

Pegeen proved she was present by walking up to them. Their older half-sister did a double take at the sight of Seth. "What, you back again, prodigal, like a bad penny? Wait till Mam sees you! It's not herself who'll be rejoicing in the lost sheep who's been found. A curse and a blow, more like, after what you've pulled, boyo." She dismissed her youngest brother in favor of showing off her prize to the second youngest. "There!" She waved an envelope at Tom. "Now tell me Kevin is of no account."

_Kevin, their dead brother, _Sybil thought sadly, and marveled to see the look of pleasure on her husband's face as he perused the letter.

"Look, love," Tom said, showing her the epistle, "Kevin Ryan sends us his love and congratulations from America!"

For the second time that day, Lady Sybil Crawley found herself dumbfounded.

* * *

Anna noticed the little girl who had come in to see them when Mr. Branson delivered Lady Sybil's crown of flowers that noon. "Are you enjoying the wedding, Aíne?"

"It's grand," the little girl asserted boldly, in imitation of the men she'd heard conversing around her. "Best I've been to for a hunerd mile, milady!"

Anna smothered her surprised laugh down into a modest a smile. "I'm not 'milady,'" she amended the child's mode of address gently. "My name is Anna."

The child's hazel eyes filled with an anxious non-understanding: first, that one of the English miladies was claiming not to be one, second, that she was claiming to be— "_My _name is Aíne," the little girl said, nervously careful, as one who corrects a misapprehension. _As in, that __**can't **__be your name, because it's mine!_

Anna thought. "Yes, you are Anna _O'Neill_. But I'm also Anna: Anna _Bates_."

For a moment the child was baffled. Then a light seemed to break. "Ah, you are Aíne Mór! I'm Aíne Óg," she concluded happily, before scampering off.

The groom had seen them and wandered over to investigate, but watched his young cousin run off complacently without calling her back. He smiled at his friend.

"What did she mean?" Anna asked him.

Mr. Branson held his hand horizontally at about the height of the little girl's head. "Aíne Óg," he said. Then he raised his hand until it was at the level of the top of his former co-worker's own head. "Anna Mór."

"More Anna?" she suggested.

He laughed. "More Anna," he agreed. Since his arms were already positioned halfway to a hug, he met her eyes in a tacit request for permission, and seeing her nod of consent, embraced her. From close to her ear, she heard him whisper, "I wish Mr. Bates were here."

"I wish he were, too, Mr. Branson." Her arms tightened around the former chauffeur for a moment, then she pulled back to hold him at arm's length. Her concerned blue eyes were mirrored in his. "It was Mr. Bates said I should come," she told him. Her former colleague said nothing in response, but his look of intense relief showed her clearly that she could have brought him no finer wedding present.


	9. Chapter 9

**Author's Note: ** "Every pot finds its cover." – Grandma

**Disclaimer: ** I'm not even a custodian, my dears, let alone an owner. These characters and their settings are the work of others. I hope I do not offend with my homage.

* * *

Lady Mary Crawley helped herself to several more slices of cold spiced beef. Normally, she did not consider herself to have much of an appetite, but there was something about this meat which she found irresistible. She tried to distinguish the subtly blended flavors, but couldn't: black pepper, she could taste that; sugar or molasses certainly, it was sweet; cloves, was it? or nutmeg? Perhaps both. She could not get enough of it. She would have eaten it _all _if she could have. And who was paying for all of this, pray tell? From the size of Tom's mother's flat, or even this flat come to think of it, the oldest Crawley sister would not have considered Tom's family to be so well-to-do.

"Are you enjoying yourself, Mary?" The slight emphasis on her Christian name told her it was Tom. He was smiling shyly at her.

She found his obvious pleasure in the long delayed 'permission' to use her name touching, but just now she had more important matters in mind. "How was this beef prepared? Do you think Mrs. Patmore would be able to make it?"

Her brother-in-law laughed. "Would you like me to try to get the receipt for her?"

As another spicy, succulent morsel of beef was currently melting delectably on Lady Mary's appreciative tongue, she was forced to signal her affirmative response with only a nod.

* * *

The crowd was merry, but not disorderly, and though no one was shy about eating their fill, absolutely no one drank to excess. Drunkenness would be perceived as an insult to their hosts, and no one wished to insult Donal O'Neill, let alone Brenna Branson. Nonetheless, several of the O'Neill cousins kept a careful eye on who was drinking what, and steered 'weaker' guests to weaker drinks when it appeared they had taken on board all they could safely handle.

Once the meal and the wedding cake were eaten, the reception took on the aspect of a céilí. Food and drink were still available at the tables nearest the kitchen for the delectation of late arrivals or those whose appetites might be renewed with exercise as the night wore on, but most of the tables had been cleared, and the chairs and other furniture were pushed the walls. A few musicians had played during dinner, but now many more broke out their instruments: whistle, flute, harp, violin, and drum, even what looked to the Crawley girls like bagpipes. The music, too, reminded them of the Ghillies' Ball at Duneagle, and made the mixing of ranks seem more 'normal' to the English girls. The reeling they had learned in Scotland stood them in good stead when the dancing became general.

* * *

Sybil and Tom, replete with food and happiness, sipped mead from the special goblets they would be expected to use for the next month (the 'honeymoon'). The matching ceramic drinking vessels bore a painted 'Tree of Life' pattern: the green crown of leaves flowing down sturdy branches into a brown trunk, then down still further to roots that blended into a stylized knotwork design. Sybil clicked her goblet against her husband's, then savored the light sweet taste of the honey wine, so unlike the heavy grape wines she had been used to back home. She leaned forward to kiss her husband, and the sweet taste of the honey wine mingled pleasantly with the sweet taste of his lips. She held the goblet against the little painted ceramic horseshoe that decorated her lace blouse. "Same artist?" she asked.

"It is," Tom agreed.

They had been dancing almost continuously, first with each other, then with each other's relatives, then with total strangers, and Sybil welcomed the opportunity to catch her breath. She had enjoyed seeing her sisters dance with Tom, even Anna had done so, and Tom's relatives acted more or less as though Sybil had always been part of the family, and always would be.

Everything seemed _so right…_ except that Papa was not here, nor Mama, nor Granny… nor Matthew.

"What is it?" Tom asked.

"Nothing," Sybil said, shaking her head.

Tom's own head cocked in response. "Are you sure? You seem—"

"Tom Branson!" The music stopped abruptly, and Seth Branson approached at the head of a crowd of male guests. "It's time," the younger man told his brother. Tom looked at the men nervously and swallowed.

Brenna and some of the other women, including Mary and Edith, came over to stand by Sybil. Tom smiled at women.

"Come on, Tommy," David O'Neill said.

Tom glanced at his cousin, nodded, and started to move off with the men, then caught Sybil's look of confusion and came back. "Sybil, I just want you to know, if they drop me, I loved you very, very much." He shook his head, and half turned away in smiling embarrassment. "I'm so glad you finally—" He turned back to her. "I didn't know it was possible to be this happy. Thank you. Truly. Whatever happens now. Thank you."

_'Thank you?' _Sybil thought. _'Why is he thanking me? And what is going to happen now?' _ The wistful way he was smiling at her worried his new wife. Tom handed his goblet to her and turned again to go with the men.

"Tom—" Sybil called, anxiously.

He turned back to her again, making some of the men groan.

"Come _on_!" Seth said. "You can do that later!"

Tom chuckled. "With you supporting me? I can't guarantee there'll _be _any later." As he leaned in to kiss his bride, he caught sight of Sybil's American doctor friend Bill North, the dark brown eyes looking at him and then at his brother speculatively. Tom wondered if the doctor knew what was coming, and saw the man start to work his way deeper into the crowd of men.

"Don't worry, Sybil," Brenna said, by way of reassurance. "If they drop him on his head, it can only improve matters."

Sybil's only response was to grab her husband for a quick hug and another kiss before he was dragged off by the impatient crowd of men.

Edith looked after them, then back at Tom's mother. "Mam," she asked. "What do you mean by 'if they _drop_ him'?"

Brenna only looked at her 'daughter' in amusement.

"What are they going to do to him?" Mary asked.

The older woman shrugged. "It's the 'jaunting car,' of course," she explained, unhelpfully.

Mary looked at the Irishwoman blankly, but Edith, the driver, asked, "That's a kind of light carriage, isn't it? Two wheel, one horse rig? Like the governess cart," she told her sisters. _'Were they going to drive Tom somewhere? Now?' _she wondered._ 'Where?'_

"Sometimes," Brenna agreed, smilingly. "And sometimes, it has no wheels… and no horse."

There was a roaring from the crowd of men. Mary, Edith, and Brenna turned towards the sound, looking in the same direction Sybil had been looking from the moment the men had taken her new husband away from her.

"What on earth—?" Mary began. They could see him. Tom. His head and shoulders had emerged from the roiling mass of excited masculinity several feet above the heads of the male guests. Yet he was… seated. The women could see the chair back behind him. _The men had lifted him up on a chair!_

"Oh, my God," Edith breathed. Suddenly she understood what Tom and his mother had meant when they had mentioned the possibility of his being "dropped." Surely they _would _drop him!

"That looks dangerous," Mary observed, drily.

Sybil stared at her husband, transfixed. He was so brave! Sybil thought she could never have allowed herself to be lifted up like that! And he looked so happy! Her heart nearly burst with wifely pride.

The men were parading their prize triumphantly around the room, with the awkward, jerky, uncoordinated movements of men who had had no opportunity to practice. Tom, grinning like he would never stop, nonetheless gripped the sides of the chair with fingers whose knuckles had already turned white. He had never been so happy, or so excited, or so terrified in all his life! He felt quite certain he was going to tumble to the floor at Sybil's feet at any moment! The men were not all the same height, and it took many hands to keep their connubial burden aloft. Tom's brother Seth, who had been supporting the front left corner of this makeshift poleless 'litter,' turned to look over his shoulder at his older brother, winked, and let go.

_'I **knew **it!'_ Tom thought. _'The little—'_ The chair was bucking like an untamed horse, and Tom was glad Seth had disappeared into the crowd, because if he had still been in reach, Tom thought the urge to aim a kick at the fraternal head would have been too great to resist. Fortunately, another hand caught at the corner of the chair which the Lord of Chaos had abandoned, and the 'jaunting car's' ride smoothed out appreciably. This man too turned back over his shoulder to meet the groom's eyes, and Tom found himself gazing into the velvet brown eyes of Sybil's American doctor.

"Thank you!" Tom yelled down to him.

The dark head nodded. "You never know who's going to put up a hand to smooth your path, do you?"

Tom shook his head. "You never do!"

The mass of men had arrived at last back in front of the bride. "A bhean, tá anseo do fear céile!" some of the men yelled as the chair hit the floor with a bang. Seth was back near the place he'd vacated earlier, and translated the remark, since Sybil's brow had creased in confusion: "Woman, here is your husband!"

The next second, the older of the two Branson boys present was out of his chair and in his wife's arms where he belonged.

* * *

Tom Branson woke to the most complete sense of well-being he had ever experienced. He felt as though every bone in his body had dissolved, leaving him a puddle of contentment where he lay. Every part of his body felt comfortable, every desire satisfied, every hunger sated, every part of his mind at piece. He lay supine, on the now delightfully familiar narrow bed in the tiny flat behind the bookstore which was cater-corner from Harrigan's saloon. Use of the flat was a 'wedding present' from his boss' uncle, who had agreed that the young couple should have privacy during their first night alone.

Sybil was no longer with him, but he felt no concern. He smiled, thinking of her. _His wife._ She came in, as though his thought had conjured her. She held a bunch of grapes in her hand. "Welcome back to the world of the living, husband," she greeted him. "Fancy some grapes?"

He nodded, so she sat down next to him to feed him. His lips brushed her fingers in taking the grapes from her, making her own lips curve in pleasure. "There's more to eat in the kitchen, you should come see."

Tom rose and followed her. The flat consisted of a parlor which ran along the south wall the whole length of the flat (not that there _was_ much length to the tiny apartment). On the east side of the parlor was a door that opened into the back of the bookshop, on the west a door that opened onto the street. In the northeast corner was the tiny bedroom, little better than a sleeping closet, and in the northwest corner the kitchen.

Along the little kitchen's east wall was a sink, a gas range, and two presses: one of them a Hoosier cabinet, the other a wooden cabinet which they opened to find was lined with metal, apparently a kind of miniature cold larder. Tom opened the top of it and looked at the metal compartment. "I guess the ice goes in here?"

They played with the gas range for a few minutes, enchanted by the ability to just turn the fire on and off, even though they had nothing they needed to cook.

"Talk about modern conveniences," Sybil said, attracted to the idea of not having to build a fire in the stove. Of _never _needing to do so. "I wish we were going to _live_ here. Whose flat is this?"

"No one's. Natan's uncle has the bookshop. He fixed up this flat when his daughter got engaged so she and her husband could live here, but they both died of the flu before the wedding."

"Like Lavinia Swire," Sybil said.

"Like Miss Swire," Tom agreed.

"At least they were together. I'm surprised he agreed to let us use it."

They sat down at the kitchen table, on which stood a bowl of fruit, a long loaf of bread, a round of cheese, and a bottle of wine. A card propped against the bottle of wine read, "Mazel tov." Sybil had seen enough of Natan's letters to know the writing was not his. She showed it to Tom. "Do you think his uncle left this for us?"

Tom nodded.

"Do you know him?"

Her husband smiled. "I've been in his bookshop a few times," he admitted.

"And _that_ was enough for him to—"

Tom was shaking his head.

"What?" his wife asked.

"He was preparing it for newlyweds…. Maybe he just wanted a pair of newlyweds to enjoy it."

"Well," Sybil suggested, "we still have a few hours of night left. Perhaps we should go back to bed and 'enjoy' it a little more."

* * *

They danced until daylight. The bride and groom had left of course, and the more casual guests, the oldest guests, the youngest guests, had gone home or retired for the night. Lady Edith, Anna, and Dara had given over to yawning and been escorted back to Brenna's flat to get some sleep. But the diehards had remained and now, as dawn streamed in the picture window, there were still at least half a dozen couples dancing, and among these remaining revelers were the mother of the groom dancing with her nephew Donal, and the oldest sister of the bride dancing with the American doctor, the two dark heads on a level, enjoying an easy friendliness that asked nothing of each other. When the dance had finished, and the musicians at last began packing up, the four collapsed together on the settee."

"Great party," Dr. North said.

"Best I've been to for a hundred miles," Donal agreed. "If I do say so myself."

"And for me for four thousand miles," the doctor said.

"Everything was wonderful," Mary told them. "Especially the food. The spiced beef in particular was really excellent. And so much of everything! I don't know when I've seen such a feast."

Brenna laughed. "The whole family will be eating nothing but brotchán foltchep for a month in penance."

"It was worth it," Donal said.

"Yes, it was," his aunt agreed. "We did them proud. Bill, is it really four thousand miles to where you live?"

"Yeah."

"Do you think you'll go home soon?"

"Auntie!" Donal reproved, shocked. "He's already stayed the night, and plenty of people are passed out in the bedrooms. You're welcome to stay," he told the American.

The doctor was laughing, mostly at Brenna's expression. "Donny, she doesn't mean I should _leave_."

"Back to America, I meant," Mrs. Branson agreed. She turned back to the doctor. "You know I want you to help Sybil find a job?"

"I know," he agreed. "I'm not leaving today, Brenna. And you know I'll do what I can for Sybil before I go."

"But Edith and I _are_ leaving today," Mary said. "And I'll need some sleep before we do."

Brenna rose, and the others followed suit. "Would you gentlemen care to escort us back to my flat?"

* * *

When Tom pulled up in front of Brenna's building in the ancient Wolseley, the remaining Crawley girls and the two Mrs. Bransons cheered. Tom and Sybil would drive Edith and Mary to the docks, then return to pack the car for their wedding trip. Here Tom's assistance in helping the ladies in the car was not a pleasant but unnecessary courtesy, as it had been with the Renault. Mary couldn't fathom how she and Edith would have made it up onto the back bench without their new brother-in-law's assistance.

"Whose car is this, Tom?" Edith asked.

"It belongs to my boss. Or maybe to his newspaper."

"How is it to drive?"

"I hardly know myself yet. But it's very old-fashioned." He rounded his eyes at her. "No self-starter."

"You poor thing," she commiserated. "Still cranking after all these years."

The ladies and their bags settled, the former chauffeur climbed up to sit next to his wife on the driver's bench.

While Mary and Edith thanked the older Mrs. Branson for her hospitality, and she assured them that their presence had been both an honor and a pleasure, the younger Mrs. Branson said quietly to her husband, "Your hands were dirty because you were working on this car."

He nodded, but didn't look at her. When she said nothing else, he ventured, "Are you angry with me?" He still was not looking at her. "We… we wouldn't be able to use the car for our trip if I hadn't fixed it. It wasn't running before…" He swallowed nervously, and Sybil watched his teeth rake his lower lip. "I know what we said…" he continued, guessing at what she would say if she chose to scold him over it, "but I thou—"

"Tom," she said, to stop him.

He turned to look at her. She kissed him.

"Not angry?" he queried again, hopefully this time.

"Not angry," she confirmed. "Now let's roll."

Branson, as he had countless times before, drove off with the three daughters of Lord Grantham.


	10. Chapter 10

**Author's Note: ** What a happy and holy fashion it is that those who love one another should rest on the same pillow. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne

**Disclaimer: ** I'm not even a custodian, my dears, let alone an owner. These characters and their settings are the work of others. I hope I do not offend with my homage.

* * *

Lady Sybil Branson, née Crawley, divided her attention between her husband's conversation and the beauty of the passing scenery. In a way, it was no different than it had been at Downton, except that now Sybil could ride on the front bench with Branson, they could look at each other as they conversed, and the muted colors of the Yorkshire dales had been replaced by the more vibrant colours of her husband's homeland. Her husband of twenty-four hours. . . They had done it. They were married. Sybil could hardly believe it yet.

While Sybil had been woolgathering, her husband had been talking.

"Not a fighting war," Tom was saying, "but just law and logic. Like Somersett's Case," he suggested.

"What's Somersett's Case?" Sybil asked.

"It's a court case that was the seed from which the abolition of slavery in England grew. In your mother's country, they had to fight a war to end slavery, but in your father's country a man whom another man claimed to own went to court, and the court ruled that the machinery of law could not be used to force one man to be another's slave. That you could purchase a slave, or make a contract with someone to become your slave if you wanted to, but if the 'slave' should then say, 'No, actually, I'm free' and walk away, the state was not going to bestir itself to get your property back for you."

"What has that got to do with Ireland?"

"Well, it's the same concept. Again, in America, they declared themselves free, and a sovereign state, but they ended up having to fight a war to make that claim good. Ireland has declared herself to be a sovereign state as well, and not England's economic or political or actual slave any more, and the question is, will England bestir herself to get us back? A lot depends on what they decide at the Paris Peace Conference. There's been a lot of talk from The Powers That Be, the 'Big Four', and especially from President Wilson in his Fourteen Points about 'self-determination': that the countries of Austria-Hungary and the countries in the Balkans should be free and independent sovereign states, and that Poland should be recognized as a free state again as well.

"But of course, historically, Ireland has been no less a nation than Poland. We have our own language, our literature, stories and myths, a long history of independence and self-government, and stable borders set by the sea. I know it isn't looking very good right now, but if all these great powers should put their money where their mouths are in regard to the 'sovereignty of small nations' and start actually recognizing a few small nations as sovereign states, say _us_," he gestured broadly, taking in himself, her, and the passing countryside, "I think the Crown would be a lot less likely to continue to try to keep us in chains. And honestly, it should be a lot easier to recognize Ireland's independence that any other nation's: for pity's sake, it's only England herself who is denying it, so it's only her own mind she'd need to change."

"Hmmm," Sybil said. "What you say sounds logical…. So why do I think it won't be that easy?"

Branson shot his wife a teasing glance. "It's your aristocratic background. 'I hold what my fathers held.' You went so far yourself as to marry an Irishman in order to keep him in your power, so obviously, the idea of letting the whole nation go is anathem—" he got no further, because he was too busy laughing and trying to squirm out of the way of her tickling fingers.

* * *

The wedding trip was a working vacation. Tom had a list of people he was required to meet with at specific places and times, in exchange for which they had the use of the ancient Wolseley, some money for expenses, and free time to visit some of Tom's relatives and see some sights.

Their first stop was at the home of Tom's sister Nuala. Considering how close the woman lived to Dublin, Sybil was surprised she had opted not to attend the wedding, until they arrived and Sybil observed how close she was to her time. She had to hand it to Tom's family: they were fertile.

"I have a wedding present for you though, Tommy," his sister said, handing him a round tin.

"Is it Yellow Man?" he asked, excitedly.

"Naturally," she smiled at him.

"May God increase your store," he said automatically.

"My store of Yellow Man?"

Tom laughed, opening the tin and grinning in satisfaction at its contents. "Yes. So there'll be more for me."

Nuala shook her head. "You're such a child."

If he was, Sybil thought, at least he was a well-brought-up child, offering the confection to herself and then to everyone else present before finally taking a piece himself. It was a species of sponge toffee, yellow in colour, and sweet. Quite delicious, in fact. Sybil sucked on a piece of the homemade toffee thoughtfully, charmed by the sight of her husband's simple delight in the treat.

"How long until…?" Tom asked.

Nuala shugged. "The Blessed Event? Two weeks, three? Not long."

"The last one out of nappies?"

Nuala shook her head.

"That's hard," he commiserated.

"It's not so bad. I'd rather have them closer together, truth be told."

Her brother's brows drew together questioningly.

"You get more of 'em in that way!"

* * *

They stayed the night. Nuala directed the newlyweds to a chest in the parlor for sheet, blanket, and pillow, and they made up a bed for themselves on the narrow couch, while Nuala shoo'd her children off to bed, and her husband banked the parlor fire.

Lying back, they found they could look at the stars through the small window opposite. When they felt certain they were the only two left awake in the small cottage, they made love as quietly as possible under the blanket. Afterwards, wrapped up in her contented husband's arms, Sybil thought, _'I made the right choice, marrying Tom.'_ She lay awake for a time, listening to his steady breathing and to the beating of his heart next to her ear: _lub-a-dub, lub-a-dub, lub-a-dub. _It sounded like a galloping horse.


	11. Chapter 11

**Author's Note: ** Más féidir leat seo a léamh, le do thoil inis dom cad a cheapann tú.

**Disclaimer: ** I'm not even a custodian, my dears, let alone an owner. These characters and their settings are the work of others. I hope I do not offend with my homage.

* * *

"…the existing state of war, between Ireland and England," the Dáil Éireann had proclaimed in its **_Message to the Free Nations of the World_** on 21 January 1919, "can never be ended until Ireland is definitely evacuated by the armed forces of England."

The 'existing state of war' was not much in evidence this morning, Sybil thought, watching her husband at the wheel of the ancient Wolseley and enjoying the misty Irish morning. As a matter of fact, she could imagine no more peaceful scene, unless the couple had been walking. Spring, in the form of fields full of gaily colored wildflowers, was making itself felt, and there were birds galore. Sybil felt it a great pity that she had no skill at painting or poetry to capture the lovely scene. She tried to mark it in her memory. _Why is it unlucky to marry in May? It's beautiful._

* * *

The newlyweds made a stop in Killbeggan, so Tom could meet with some men on behalf of his employer. Sybil had contemplated doing some shopping in the town, but it appeared her husband had other plans for her. To her great surprise, he had dropped her off at the Convent of Mercy (a bastion of those same Sisters of Mercy whose nursing prowess was the bane of Sybil's Dublin job search). A middle-aged nun, whose exact rank was unclear to the young Englishwoman, but who said her name was Sister Sheila, gave Sybil a tour of the convent school, then gave her tea as well, and told her many interesting things about her experiences as a nurse on behalf of Christ. At the end of their talk, the woman gave Sybil two letters, one addressed to a hospital in Dublin, the other addressed to Brenna Branson.

"She knows _everyone_, doesn't she?" Sybil exclaimed in amazement.

"She knows me because I'm her niece," the nun laughed.

Sybil blinked, but a vague memory teased, of Tom telling her long ago that he had a cousin who was a nurse.

"Tom is related to half of Ireland, isn't he?" Sybil said.

"It's entirely possible. We're a large family," Sister Sheila agreed. "But then you need a large family, don't you? Who's going to help you, if not your family?"

"I don't know," Sybil said. "I guess my family is really pretty small: my parents, two sisters, a grandmother, Cousin Matthew and Cousin Isobel…Grandmama and Uncle Harold in America…"

"That does sound small," the nun agreed. "But now you have your husband's family, too."

"I guess I do…" Sybil agreed thoughtfully.

"And let's be honest, Sybil. Even if you only had Aunt Brenna to your name, she's quite a large family in herself."

* * *

Clonmacnoise, it was said, had given Ireland the name of "Land of Saints and Scholars." Wandering through the ruins with her book-loving Irish husband, Sybil wondered if, had the monastery had still been a going concern, Tom might have ended up there, copying manuscripts (or whatever it was monks did nowadays) and praying.

"Tom," Sybil said, squeezing his hand, as they walked together.

He smiled at her. "Yes, darlin'?"

"Do you think you could ever have been a monk?"

He grinned at her and pulled her close for a kiss. She savored his warm, sweet lips there in the gentle sunshine. It took several kisses to satisfy him sufficiently for him to answer her. Pellucid blue eyes gazed fondly into hers. "No, love. I could _never_ have been a monk."

* * *

They stayed at a guest house in the country, clean and snug, with a queer squat stove and no electricity. Sybil considered the rectangles of dirt that waited in readiness next to the hearth. "Not like the gas stove in the flat behind the bookstore, is it?"

"It's not that different from coal," Tom pointed out, then realized he had no matches with him. A brief investigation of the mantel produced a tinderbox, which mercifully contained both char cloth and tinder, but he was out of practice, so still took a good twenty minutes with the flint and steel to coax a fire into existence. Sybil watched, fascinated, from beginning to end, and applauded when he had succeeded in getting the peat fuel in the stove to catch.

"What are we eating?" she asked.

He unpacked the basket of food he'd bought in the last village they'd passed. "Mince pies?" he offered. She nodded happily.

There was a kettle, and he went outside for water to fill it, in order to make what his wife thought of as the inevitable insanely strong tea. Perhaps she'd water it down.

Later, when they'd eaten, and night had folded itself down over the countryside, Sybil felt as secure in the little cottage as she'd ever felt anywhere. She helped her husband wash the plates and cups they'd used, then moved to the little bed, and started to undress. Seeing her, Tom started to follow suit.

Sybil frowned. "Be still, Tom." He looked at her questioningly, but stopped moving obligingly, hands still on the Windsor knot in his necktie. She moved in close to him. "Let me," she whispered close to his ear, her purring breath warm on his neck. He swallowed and nodded. She put her hands on his to lower his arms. She loosened his tie, and pulled it off. Serious as a valet, she removed her husband's coat and vest. He moistened his lips, and smiled at her, but didn't speak, and didn't otherwise move. Her dark head bent over the buttons of his shirt, and he wanted very badly to kiss her. She looked up at him suddenly, her hands stilled a moment on the front placket of his shirt, and smiled at him. "How beautifully you keep still, Tom," the husky voice cooed seductively. She put up a dainty hand and gave his cheek a gentle caress. "Do you have any idea how much pleasure you give me?"

He started to lean towards her to claim the kisses that were part of her 'marital debt' to him. Then he remembered he was supposed to keep still. He started to pull back, surprising a chuff of laughter out of his wife: "Yes," she said, "you can kiss me!" she encouraged him. "And that's not all," she teased suggestively.

Her faithful servant was quick to obey.


	12. Chapter 12

**Author's Note: ** "…shew me thy face, let thy voice sound in my ears; for thy voice is sweet, and thy face comely." –Canticle of Canticles 2:14b, Holy Bible, Douay-Rheims translation

**Disclaimer: ** I'm not even a custodian, my dears, let alone an owner. These characters and their settings are the work of others. I hope I do not offend with my homage.

* * *

They were getting better at it. Sybil lifted her goblet, Tom lifted his, and they twined their right arms around each other so each could drink from his or her own vessel. They drank deeply, smiling at each other over the rims of the ceramic cups. Neither of them spilled so much as a drop. Sybil was getting used to the taste of honey in her mouth.

The secret was to get close. Too far apart and arm banged into arm, spilling the golden mead between them. Get close and it worked perfectly. Like now. Arms entwined, eyes only inches apart, the newlyweds studied each other.

Sybil's eyes, framed in long, dark lashes, were a clear translucent blue, unmixed with any other color, like stained glass masquerading as the morning sky, rimmed with cobalt. Gazing at them now, Tom thought her azure orbs might have been made of velvet, the purity of the color submerged as if under a layer of clear water. Tom's own irises on the other hand, seen up close, revealed a secret, like the 'secret heart' concealed in their wedding ring. From his hazel eyed mother, Tom had inherited delicate starburst tracings of both green and brown, resting upon and nearly enveloped by a background of cerulean blue. Sybil smiled. The whole world thought her husband's eyes were merely blue, but she knew a secret. This intimacy, of looking into each other's eyes so closely, was new to them, however old their friendship might be. Now they could look and not be ashamed. Now they did not fear discovery. Now they could touch, and smell, and taste, as well as see and hear.

Sybil could smell the mead on Tom's breath. She wondered, if she kissed him, would she be able to taste it? She leaned forward and claimed her husband's mouth with her own to learn. What did he taste like? She explored her husband's mouth, considering him like a connoisseur. The taste of honey that was Tom himself was sweeter than the wine.

* * *

They worked their way west. They stayed with Tom's relatives whenever possible. Presumably at least one of the former chauffeur's ancestors was a Patriarch of old, his wife thought privately, whose promise from the Lord that his descendants would be as numerous as grains of sand on the beach had been amply fulfilled. At other times they stayed at quaint little inns or guest houses. Often, they paused to meet with colleagues of Tom's boss on the 'business errands' that were the excuse for their trip.

On this particular day, the couple had stopped at a small inn for tea, which was served with bread, butter, and honey. Sybil exclaimed over the taste and appearance of the honey. It had an unusual, piquant flavor and looked like liquid amber. The woman of the house, Mairead, explained that the taste was due to the local wildflowers, and the appearance was due to the care she took in finishing the product.

Sybil had initially supposed they had stopped at this hostel only because she had told her husband she was hungry, but shortly after their arrival two other men had joined them, and it transpired that Tom had driven them here specifically to meet with these men. Tom and the other men looked at each other significantly. One of the men looked at Mairead, who nodded and said, "Mrs. Branson, perhaps you'd care to see the hives for yourself?"

Sybil looked at her husband, not fooled in the least. She knew when she wasn't wanted. Tom gazed back at her blandly. He had work to do. "I would love to see the hives," Sybil told their hostess, "thank you." Once the women had departed, the men got down to business.

* * *

Stillness filled him and enfolded him. Sybil wished to explore the conjugal pledge at her leasure, unhurried by any distracting demands from him. Tom was long schooled in patience; their years-long courtship had taught him well. If he knew anything by this time, he knew he could wait. And this was far better: then, he had been forbidden to touch her; now, _she_ was touching _him_.

God, what was she doing? Delicate fingers skimmed his skin, awakening every inch of him. She was kissing him. Not his mouth alone, but his neck, his shoulder, her tongue was wetting him. "Mmm-mmm," she murmured, hungrily, as if she thought he tasted good. "_Mil._"

Tom was started into speech. "What?!" he exclaimed.

"_Blas tú cosúil le mil,_" his wife elaborated.

"Who taught you that?"

"Mairead, when she was showing me the beehives."

Tom felt his wife's tongue lap his bare flesh, like a mother cat washing a kitten; suddenly, her teeth nipped him, much less painful than a bee sting would have been, but it hurt. Involuntarily, he began to tremble.

_What was she doing?_ Her mouth stayed on him, but her hands were moving over his muscles like a veteran cattle buyer checking the conformation of a bull. Firm hands squeezed flesh already tense with desire. _God. _

"_Is breá liom mil,_" Sybil whispered huskily against his burning skin. He wanted her to devour him. He shivered, afraid he would lose control. Anxiety shot through him: he was supposed to be keeping still!

She had felt it. "Don't be afraid, darling." Gentle fingers pressed against his clenched jaw to turn his face towards her. His blue eyes were wide, and filled not with fear, but with desire. He moistened his lips, but didn't speak. Seeing it, she leaned closer and wet his lips herself with her own tongue. He made a tiny sound, a high pitched note of distress. She could feel him quivering in her hands like a plucked harp string. "What is it, sweetheart?"

He wanted so much to please her, but how long did she think he could stay still? "I just," he was panting with the effort required for such iron control, "don't want to disappoint you."

A slow smile spread across the lovely face: the crystalline blue eyes alight, the smooth, dusky skin of her cheeks glowing with an inner radiance, the luscious, red lips curved with pleasure: "Then kiss me, Tom." She cocked a dark eyebrow teasingly, "I'm expecting a substantial payment on your_ marital debt_, so don't disappoint me."

He would have answered her, but he had better things to do with his mouth.

* * *

The war had found them.

"Get down outta that car, ya feckin' bastid," the men shouted. "And the biddy, too."

Tom swung down nonchalantly from the driver's seat, and walked around towards the men. He held up a hand to assist his wife. "Lady Sybil," he enunciated in a posh, plummy, upper-class English accent that would have done Lord Merton's son Larry Grey proud, "I'm sure you'll forgive these men. Doubtlessly due to the poverty of their lower-class upbringing, they have absolutely no idea how one behaves around a lady."

The startled soldiers were apologizing before he had even finished speaking. Stupid of them not to have recognized people of Quality. Of course Lady Sybil and her husband were not the people they were looking for.

Tom looked bored. "Perfectly understandable, old chap." He did not sound like himself _at all. _Sybil could not believe this ruse could actually be working, and she was still staring at her husband as they drove away. Tom looked at her sidelong. "Did you expect me to line prone on the ground for them, milady?"

Sybil shook her head, but it was unclear whether the gesture conveyed denial, or amazement, or both.

* * *

They had taken off their street clothes and dressed for bed, their desire for each other heightened by the brush with danger that afternoon. This time however, it was Tom who said, "Be still, love." Sybil froze. She had forgotten to take off her earrings. They were the drop earrings she had worn on their wedding day, which she had been told would now bring her luck whenever she wore them. She had been wearing them when they encountered the soldiers. Had that been lucky? It was lucky they'd got away. Tom reached out and touched an earring, setting it in motion. He watched it dance against his wife's creamy neck, seemingly fascinated. Sybil's brow furrowed. Was he just going to sit there? Wasn't he going to touch her?

Tom watched the earring until it stopped moving, then reached out to set it swinging again. He smiled like an infant who has batted at a favorite toy. He saw his wife frowning at him, and smiled back at her. He got up and moved close to her, stroked her cheek, his fingers only lightly skimming her skin. She moved her head and caught one of his fingers between her teeth. He tsked slightly, not bothering to pull his hand away, but merely saying, "Is _this _the way you keep still, darlin'?" She blushed rosily, and released his finger, turning her head away in shame. Tom cooed at her. "Don't turn away, love. I want to see you." He gently turned the glorious, now-crimson countenance back towards him.

She clearly felt badly for having moved. "I'm sorry, Tom. I disappointed you, when you were so good for me."

"Shhh," he soothed. "I'm not disappointed. Try again, love. Keep still." He kissed her still flushed cheek, and she again became immobile. He caressed her. She didn't move. His hand dropped lower, seeking out places to fondle. His mouth followed, feathering kisses along the trail gently laid out by his hand. Eventually, just as he had, she began to tremble. He put his hands on her, to feel it, though her shaking was already visible as well.

"Tom?" she breathed, urgently. She was going to lose control, she knew it. He moved his hands in a way that was wonderful. She fought not to respond but couldn't stifle a tiny cry. She bit her lips, already red and swollen with desire.

Tom leaned in close to whisper in her ear, "It's not so easy, is it, milady?" She stared at him, eyes huge. Her only response was a mewing sound.

"Please, Tom," she begged him. "I don't want to disappoint you, but I simply _can't—_"

Her husband regarded her almost plaintively. "Sybil, I'll be _so _disappointed if you don't kiss me—" He got no further, because he had been pounced on by a tigress.


	13. Chapter 13

**Author's Note: ** "And what about your people? Would they accept me?" –Lady Sybil Crawley, Downton Abbey, Season Two, U.K. episode 4.

**Disclaimer: ** I'm not even a custodian, my dears, let alone an owner. These characters and their settings are the work of others. I hope I do not offend with my homage.

* * *

The Wolseley coasted gently to a standstill.

Sybil glanced over at her husband. "Why are we stopping?" she asked curiously.

Tom gave his wife a sidelong look. "Not for any reason that's intentional, I'm afraid." He got down to see if he could crank start the motor again, but was unsurprised when it failed to work. He returned to his wife. "Love, I'm afraid we're going to be here for a bit: the motor needs a little attention."

To his surprise, Sybil actually looked happy at this news. "Really? We're stopping here for a little while?"

Tom nodded, blushing.

"Excellent!" his wife enthused. "Will you help me down?"

Tom smiled, raising a hand automatically to help her alight. _'This is the kind of wife you want.' _Still, he found he couldn't resist asking, "How exactly is it excellent that the car has broken down?"

"Well, I've been trying to think of an excuse to stop so I could get a look at those flowers over there."

Tom looked where she was pointing, then back at his wife. "Apparently, the Wolseley heard your prayer, and has decided to act the part of Deus ex machina for you. Literally." He frowned at the car.

"Cheer up, husband. Like you said, you fixed it before. So what you did before, you can do again." She kissed him, and wandered off in search of her flowers.

* * *

The terrain sloped gently downwards toward the road, so Sybil was able to keep an eye on her husband while she gathered flowers for her wreath. She had never been much good at doing this, but the one Tom had made for their wedding had been so beautiful, she felt inspired to try. The country was so gorgeous! Why should there be trouble in such a lovely place? But today she saw no trouble, only grass, and flowers, a few floating clouds, and her husband working under the car.

As she struggled to weave the flower stems together she could hear her him singing at his work:_ "…to fix his little machine. He was just dying to cuddle his queen…"_ She smiled, and while her attention was off them, the willful flowers rallied to make a break for freedom. Blossoms threw themselves to the ground and scattered themselves over the grass. Sighing, Sybil bent to retrieve the recalcitrant flora so she could try again.

* * *

Tom had emerged from under the car in favor of spending time under the open bonnet. As Sybil at last approached him with her finished floral offering in hand, he caroled exuberantly, _"… he'd have to get under, get out and get under, and fix up his automobile!"_ To emphasize his grand finale, he slammed the bonnet closed.

Sybil cocked her head. "Is it fixed now?"

"I sincerely hope so," Tom told her.

"Here, darling, I made this for you." She set the crown of flowers on his tousled hair, then watched in dismay as it immediately fell apart, blossoms cascading merrily to the ground.

"Oh," she exclaimed, disappointment clearly audible in the husky voice, "why won't it work for me?" She frowned at her husband, who was gathering up the fallen flowers.

"It's all right, love," Tom said, making two piles of blooms on the hood of the Wolseley. "Let's see what you've got here." He examined the few stems she had managed to get to stick together thoughtfully. "Ah, I see. I don't think that will work with this type of stem." He laughed suddenly: "No, obviously it won't."

"Don't gloat, Tom," Sybil scolded him. "Can you fix it?"

He scratched his cheek. "I think so. Let's try it like this." He showed her what he was doing.

Sybil nodded. "Oh, that's right! I've done it that way before." It took her only a little longer to weave together her half of the flowers than it took her husband, but he had succeeded in crowning her before she had finished his fragrant coronet. He helped her tuck in the remaining ends. This time when she placed it on his brow, the wreath held together. The crowned heads kissed in mutual satisfaction.

"Now," Tom said, "we'd better get on. They'll be expecting us at Uncle Finnbar's."

* * *

Finnbar Branson had taken over the tenant farm which had formerly been worked by his father Brian, Tom's grandfather, with whom Tom had stayed over several summers in his boyhood. The long cottage, whitewashed with a red door and thatched roof, looked the same to Tom. Some of the men had come outside to greet them upon hearing the car pull up, Uncle Finn among them.

"Tom!" the older man greeted him. "What are you got up as, boy?" he gestured to the crown of flowers.

"The King of the May?" Tom joked. The blond man pushed his nephew's shoulder. "Sybil, this is my Uncle Finnbar. Uncle Finn, my wife Sybil."

"Sybil," he greeted her. "May you enjoy your new life."

"I am," she assured him.

"Tom, did you come up from Galway?"

"No, we came straight west."

"Where did you pick up the car?"

"In Dublin."

"You've driven the whole way?"

"Sure."

"How…" Uncle Finn looked at his nephew quizzically. "Where did you find enough petrol to get you all that way?"

Tom laughed. "We didn't."

"You just said—"

"We found a lot of poitín though."

"What?!"

"I thought we might have a hard time finding petrol, so I ran a second fuel line, installed a switching valve, and rigged up an auxiliary fuel reservoir so we could run it on alcohol at need."

"You're running that car on mountain dew?"

"Uh-huh," Tom nodded. "It's powerful stuff."

Uncle Finn chuckled. "Only you would think of that, Tom. What a terrible waste of spirits!"

"It brought us to you, didn't it?" He glanced at his wife. "Not one hundred percent trouble free, I admit, but-"

"I have some you should try," Finn interrupted.

"I'm still contractually obligated to drink mead, but we could use some for the car."

Finn nodded, clapping his nephew on the shoulder.

Just then, Tom noticed the old woman standing in the doorway.

"A Mhaimeó!" Tom called to her.

Instead of replying, she looked at him askance and walked back into the cottage.

"How much trouble am I in?" Tom asked his uncle in concern.

"A lot," Uncle Finnbar admitted.

"I'll talk to her," Tom said.

"If she'll let you."

"She'll let me." He walked into the house after her.

* * *

She was not really Tom's grandmother, Finnbar explained to Sybil. She had been Finn's father's housekeeper, but acted as grandmother to everyone at the farm. She'd been married once, but the man wasn't good to her, and she'd left him. Finnbar's father had taken her in and given her work.

"Why is she angry about Tom's marrying me?" Sybil asked.

Finnbar sighed. "Her husband was English."

* * *

As they came inside, Sybil heard her husband saying quietly, "Éisteacht liom tú, a mhaimeó."

The old woman was seated in an armchair, and Tom sat on a hassock at her feet. The old woman glanced over at Sybil near the door. "Conas a d'fhéadfadh tú a phósadh bean Sasanach?" Her voice was querulous.

"Ní ba mhaith liom a bheith sásta le duine ar bith eile cé go bhfuil sí beo." He moistened his lips. "Please. I love her. I love you."

She sighed, patted his hand, and nodded. He glanced at his wife. "Muirne, this is my wife, Sybil. Sybil, this is Muirne, my máthair Chríona."

* * *

"Tom," Sybil asked, as they got ready for bed, "what did you say to Muirne to change her mind?"

He had moved the top of her gown aside to kiss the bare skin of her shoulder. "I said I couldn't be happy with anyone but you."

"Show me how happy you are, sweetheart."

And it was soon clear that he was very happy indeed.


	14. Chapter 14

**Author's Note: **"Dum spiro, spero." _[While I breathe, I hope.] _–motto of the Branson family, Yorkshire, England.

**Disclaimer: **I'm not even a custodian, my dears, let alone an owner. These characters and their settings are the work of others. I hope I do not offend with my homage.

* * *

"Uncle Finn," Sybil asked, following her husband's uncle around the farm as he attended to various chores, enjoying the unusual feel of the light, warm sprinkles of rain on her face, and keeping a weather eye on the horizon in case she should see a rainbow, "why did Muirne speak Irish to Tom when she speaks fluent English?"

The Irishman sighed, and paused in his task to answer her. "I think perhaps she wanted to remind Tom that he is Irish, and that English people are 'the Other.' Saving your presence, Sybil," he apologized. "It's absurd, really."

"That's all right," she told him. "I'm not offended. And it isn't absurd. We _are_ different. Two different countries, really," she asserted boldly.

Finn smiled. "You _are_ Tom's wife, aren't you?"

Sybil nodded, smiling back.

"Well, in a way it _is _absurd, regardless. He is a Branson after all, like all of us, and the Bransons came from England, originally."

"What?!"

"Certainly. Did you think 'Branson' was an Irish name?"

"Well—" she began.

"It isn't."

"There's a family called Branson in Yorkshire—"

"That's the one," he agreed. "Or it may be the one. Or the place. Edward Branson was Richard III's man: came over when the king granted Galway its charter in 1484. After Bosworth, he slipped away from England and came back here, said he'd felt at home here, and there was nothing for him in England with his master dead, so he just… stayed."

Sybil blinked. "So Tom is part English."

"A bit," Finn agreed. "It was five hundred years ago. There's been a lot of Irish blood went into the family since then."

"Thank you for telling me."

"You're welcome," he said.

Sybil was thoughtful as she walked back to the house.

* * *

"Look up there," Tom requested softly, pointing to the corner of the room, near the ceiling. His wife sighed, but obeyed, and felt her drop earrings begin to swing yet again. She held her head still, but cut her eyes back to look at her husband. He remained where he had been sitting, motionless on the bed. He watched the earring raptly. What did it mean to him, to see her earring swing? She thought he could have happily sat and watched it for _hours_, but she was not about to stand still while he did so.

"Tom," she told her husband tartly. "If this is how it's going to be, I think I'll wear nothing but studs from now on, or perhaps give up wearing earrings all together."

Tom's eyes widened in alarmed horror, but he said nothing, instead swallowing and looking down at the floor.

"Tom?" Sybil asked, concerned. She saw a tiny flash of light, as the candle reflected the passage of something falling, and broke from her pose to kneel at her husband's feet. She lifted his chin to find a tear rolling down his cheek, with brothers brimming in the blue eyes.

Sybil got up to sit on the bed next to him and wrapped her arms around him. He hugged her tightly. She heard him whisper, "I just wanted to look at you… please don't stop wearing them."

Her arms tightened around him comfortingly. "I was only teasing, Tom. Of course, I'll wear them, I know how much you like them." She pulled back a little. "But I need you to touch me, too, sometimes, not just look." She picked up his hand, and lay his fingers on her neck, at the place he normally looked when her earrings were swinging. His gentle fingers explored the area from her ear to her shoulder, then gave way for his mouth to explore it as well.

* * *

Hours later, Sybil came wide awake, she was not sure why. She looked over at her husband. Tom slept peacefully, sated by their lovemaking apparently, though he had not passed out tonight: they had fallen asleep together. She looked at her earrings, abandoned on the bedside table. Tom was so strange sometimes, so vulnerable and fragile… she did not understand, but she loved him. She leaned over and kissed his cheek. He sighed gently, but didn't wake, so Sybil left him and got up by herself. She put on a robe and wandered out to the kitchen to look for something to eat.

It was midnight, so Sybil had more or less expected to have the kitchen to herself, but she didn't: Muirne sat at the table.

"I'm sorry," Sybil said. "I didn't think anyone would be up."

Muirne shrugged. "When I was a girl we all used to get up around midnight. 'First sleep,' then 'second sleep' we called it, and the best thinking done between… and the best lovemaking… or so I was told."

The old woman appeared to have been folding spills, for strips of newspaper and a little pile of the rolled candle-lighters sat before her, but she was not doing so now. Instead, she held one of the two honeymoon goblets that Sybil and Tom had left on the table, and was tracing over the knotwork pattern below the roots of the tree of life with the tip of one of the newspaper spills. She looked up at the young Englishwoman and smiled, then gestured for her to sit with the hand that held the goblet. "I couldn't resist," the old woman explained.

"What are you doing?" Sybil asked.

"I'm tracing the endless pattern of life, a stóirín. Take up the cup there," she watched as Sybil took up the goblet, "and one of those paper spills," she nodded as the girl obeyed her. "Now, put the tip of the spill on part of the knotwork, and trace along the pattern."

Sybil traced along the decorative line, wondering what she was to do when it came to an end. She cast a glance sidelong at the old woman, who had resumed her own tracing, then looked back at her own cup… eventually, it dawned on her that the pattern did _not _end, it looped endlessly back on itself. She traced it slowly, and the repetition soothed her.

The two women sat together, tracing along the patterns on the cups, and the old woman spoke again. "I wanted to speak to you, Sybil, and apologize for the way I acted before. I should have had more faith."

Sybil continued tracing, but darted a glance at the old woman. "Why?" she asked softly. "You didn't know me."

"No," Muirne agreed. "But I know Tom." The aged hand, bent with arthritis, yet directed the spill smoothly around the curved knotwork. "He was a loving boy, and he's a loving man, and he wouldn't have brought us someone who wasn't a good woman."

"Thank you..." Sybil said, not sure what else she should say.

"Be good to him, darlin'."

"I will," she promised.

* * *

Tom, no longer asleep, sat motionless on the bed waiting for her when she returned. She stood still a moment, remembering his saying earlier that he just wanted to look at her, and was sorry now that she wore no earrings, yet all the same, she tilted her head as noticibly as she would have to make drop earrings dance for him.

He smiled slightly, and exhaled audibly just a bit, not a laugh, but an indication of amused and grateful understanding of her gesture. He moistened his lips, and said, as sweetly and plaintively as though he were in sober truth one of the enchanted gingerbread children in Humperdinck's opera that he quoted, "'Oh, touch me, too, that I also may awake.'"

She touched him as requested, and found the time between first and second sleep was indeed a wonderful time to make love.


	15. Chapter 15

**Author's Note: ** "To touch can be to give life." –Michelangelo Buonarroti, painter of the Sistine Chapel frescos, including _The Creation of Adam_.

**Disclaimer: ** I'm not even a custodian, my dears, let alone an owner. These characters and their settings are the work of others. I hope I do not offend with my homage.

* * *

_Touch her. And before it was 'don't touch her.' _Tom reflected upon the retribution Sybil had exacted for the crime of taking her hand at the Garden Party at the start of the war. And the day he'd read in the newspaper that the czar and his family had been killed, and he'd tried to stop Sybil from leaving the garage by touching her hip. She had just looked at his hand, touching her even though he knew well enough that to do so was forbidden. He had thought she might kiss him, but then she left, and failed to return for long enough that he'd feared she was avoiding him. He vaguely recalled voicing that fear to her: she'd replied, "Of course not."

_Of course not. _Tom put his hand on his wife's hip now. Her head tilted down momentarily to look at his hand, then flicked back up so her welcoming eyes could meet his. The movement set her long, dangly earrings swinging wildly, gloriously against her creamy neck. She was right; it was better for him to touch her than to just look. Tom laughed in delight; this time, they did kiss.

* * *

_When Tom Branson was thirteen years old, his cousin Daniel had somehow convinced Brother Jacob from the Christian Brothers School that it was his duty to impose upon his friendship with one of the Trinity College librarians to the extent of taking the winners of that year's penmanship prizes to see the Book of Kells. The winners were Daniel, Tom, and a friend of theirs named Peader. _

_When the great day arrived, the three were enjoined to be on their very best behavior, and before going in to see the famous tome, Brother Jacob, who really was the gentlest, kindest, and nicest of the brothers at the school, lined his prizewinning scholars up in the hallway and promised them the beating of their lives if they dared to touch ANYTHING in the room they were about to enter. He gave them special permission to keep their hands in their pockets (normally forbidden as disrespectful), if they thought that precaution necessary. Tom and Peader both decided caution was the better part of valor, and thrust their hands into their trouser pockets. _

_Brother Jacob's librarian friend, a rather dried-up-looking, yet kindly man explained how the book had been created, a little about its history (including the fact that it had been stolen, its cover torn off never to be found again, and had lain for a time in a ditch), and the various rare materials used to make its wondrous colors. The boys had been forbidden to touch, but they had not been forbidden to speak, and looking at the gorgeously decorated calf-skin pages and their impossibly vibrant colors, Tom did speak: he whispered, "I can't believe it." _

_Incredibly, the old librarian smiled at him. "What have we here, a 'doubting Thomas'? 'Reach hither they finger… reach hither they hand…and be not faithless, but believing.'" _

_Tom stared at the gentle, bookish old man in utter stupification. No way. Inside his pockets, his left hand gripped the lawn interior lining of the pocket itself, while his right hand clasped his little rosary until the crucifix dug into his flesh. He was NOT being given permission to touch a 1,000 year old book. He looked at Brother Jacob, but his teacher's face was inscrutable. _

_Tom turned back to the librarian. "Thank you, sir," he said. "I can believe without touching." _

_Next to him his cousin Daniel, whose hands hung down motionless at his sides like those of a step dancer, motioned at the book with his head. "I think that's the story it's open to, Tom. John 20:27."_

_ The adults smiled their agreement._

* * *

They had left Uncle Finn's to take in the sights in Galway, then swung down as far as the Dingle Peninsula.

"Is it named for Mrs. Dingle, who runs the laundry at Downton," Sybil asked, mischievously.

"I'm sure if you were ask her, she'd say it was," her husband replied, dryly.

They took a picnic to some cliffs by the ocean. Tom pointed out a promontory that was a lovely green on top, but cut abruptly off at the sides in rocky cliff faces, and also boasted about a dozen spiky standing stones which marched down to the water. For some reason the scene gave her husband immense satisfaction.

Sybil was baffled. "It's lovely, Tom. What is it?"

He smiled beatifically. "It's Sybil Head."

* * *

The cousins they stayed with here actually ran a guest house, and the night they arrived seemed to be a festival of some sort, because a number of singers performed.

Sybil was particularly struck by an older woman, who sang a rather risqué song about how she was looking for an old man to "warm up her bed." The audience seemed to have no compunction about cheering the woman on. Sybil cuddled close to Tom, who kept his arm comfortably around her shoulders, even while he sipped his mead. Their possession of and use of the honeymoon goblets had given rise to a lot of ribald commentary.

As the older woman's song neared it's close, it seemed to Sybil that the woman was addressing her directly: _"Now all you young women who're cozy at night, keep your hands on your man, as you snuggle up tight._" Sybil glanced at Tom, who smiled, amused. _"Keep him happy and satisfied, warm and fed." _The woman actually gestured to Tom at this point, and now both the newlyweds were blushing and laughing, to the amusement of the other patrons. _"Sure, I'd trade my red bloomers for an old man in bed."_

* * *

Tom sat on the bed, and massaged his wife's palms. He smiled, remembering when he was not allowed to touch them. But now he could. He picked up her right hand, and kissed the palm, then placed her palm on his own left hip. He pressed the back of her hand gently, a tacit signal to mean 'keep that there.' He took her left hand, brushing her wedding ring in the process, which made her smile and lean over to kiss his lips. He accepted her caress, then put two fingers on her lips to stop her from continuing. "Wait a bit, will you, love?"

"All right," she breathed. He was touching her, so she could let him do what he wanted for a while. He straightened out her left arm, and started kissing the crease of her elbow. Sybil tried her best to stay still, but for some reason the attention of his mouth and tongue at the joining of her upper and lower arms was making her insane with desire. _'How does he _do _that? It's my _elbow, _for pity's sake!'_

"Tom," she groaned.

"You're right, love," he said.

"About what?" his wife asked, voice husky with arousal.

He licked the crease of her elbow again. "Is breá liom mil."

Sybil did her best to devour him.


	16. Chapter 16

**Author's Note:** _ "Well, 'twas there upon a chair lay her teeth and golden hair… there upon a peg she hung up her wooden leg… So check their teeth and pull their hair, and make sure that they're all there, by the bright silvery light of the moon."_ -from a song about the dangers of being in a hurry to marry without 'inspecting' one's spouse first.

**Disclaimer:** I'm not even a custodian, my dears, let alone an owner. These characters and their settings are the work of others. I hope I do not offend with my homage.

* * *

Eventually, inevitably, the time came for Tom to turn point the Wolseley towards home. Dublin, that is. Mam's, specifically, since they had no actual home of their own as yet.

"Tom," Sybil asked. "Where are we going to sleep in your mother's flat?"

He blinked. "In the guest room, I'd imagine," then seeing her expression, he wondered, "why do you ask?"

"Well," she blushed, very becomingly, her husband thought, "the bed in the guest room is… _very narrow._"

"I thought you liked spooning," he teased. A thought struck him. "Wait a minute. Didn't you tell me Anna and Mam shared the guest room while Edith and Mary were here? How did they manage?"

Sybil was distracted for a moment by the way Tom said the name 'Mary.' He said the name 'Edith' the same way he said 'Nuala' or 'Pegeen,' but whenever he said the name 'Mary' his voice and expression always seemed, just for an instant, to take on the absurd yet charming aspect of a child's who has just been given permission to sit at the grown-up up table. To say 'Mary' was clearly a special and delightful treat to her husband.

"Sybil?" Tom asked, questioningly. "Were Mam and Anna spooning?"

Sybil gave the husky chuckle that served her in place of a giggle. "I don't think so, Tom. That little guest bed has no less than two trundle beds and a mattress that wheel under it."

"So what's the problem?"

"Ummm, well..."

"Ah. So, you're saying, it's not our _sleeping_, exactly, that worries you, love?"

"Tom!"

"I'm only saying—"

"Tom, we could get hurt on those beds going from one level down to the next."

"Well, we'll just have to be careful… or else do our _sleeping _on the floor." He kissed his wife's still anxious-looking face. "We'll figure something out, my darlin', never fear. I promise faithfully to run no arrears on our 'marital debt.'" He winked lewdly. Sybil shook her head, but laughed, comforted.

* * *

However, the honeymoon wasn't quite over just yet.

It was quite late when the young couple retired to their room at the inn and began to dress for bed.

"Ow!" Tom yelped, reaching to grab his wife's fingers, which she had twined around a lock of his hair. "What are you doing, woman?"

Sybil beamed at him. "Making sure you're not wearing a wig, darling. Like in the song tonight?"

"I'm not wearing one right now, but I may have to if you pull out all my hair." He grinned suddenly. "Perhaps I'd better check your teeth, love." He reached forward and slid a surprisingly gentle finger between his wife's open lips. She bit him. Hard. "Sybil!" He pulled his hand back and put the stinging digit between his own lips and sucked on it to ease the pain. He treated her to a wounded look, then took his finger out of his mouth long enough to say, "I think maybe we'd better stop attending these music sessions."

"Let me see it."

Tom let her take his hand, and the nurse bent her head to inspect her husband's injured finger. She kissed it tenderly. "Is that better, sweetheart?"

Tom nodded.

"Then let me show you the proper way to check someone's teeth."

He looked worried, but said, "All right."

She murmured soothingly while reaching one hand around to the back of his head to bring his mouth within her reach. Her wet, velvet tongue was in his mouth, and he felt it slide over his teeth, slowly, one by one. His whole body started to react, but his wife kept hold of his head with one hand, and snaked an arm around his shoulders in an effort to keep him still so he wouldn't bite her tongue, while she continued her inspection: incisor, canine, premolar…

Tom fought to breathe, to allow passage both to her tongue and to the air he needed in larger than usual quantities. It was incredibly odd to feel someone else's tongue against the enamel of his teeth. His own tongue slid against hers, velvet on velvet. He could hear himself moaning. Her tongue withdrew softly, and she smiled at her panting husband. "You seem to still have a goodly number of teeth left. Now let's see if the rest of you is as it should be."

Tom's eyes widened. "Don't worry, Tom. I know what parts you should have." For this inspection, too, she used her tongue, but it was joined by her lips and hands.

If someone had asked Tom Branson at any time up to that very moment on the clock, whether having someone kiss and stroke his body while murmuring such things as "Latissimus Dorsi" and "Iliacus" would be a desirable state of affairs, he would just have stared. But it was _VERY DESIRABLE! _Strangely, or perhaps not so strangely, as she moved along from limb to limb, naming muscles and bones, the places she hadn't yet reached began to ache for the touch of her fingers, or her lips, or her tongue, and to yearn to be 'named' themselves.

There was an awkward moment when she twined her fingers in the hair that made a faint cross in the middle of his chest. "You don't have very much chest hair," she remarked casually, "compared to a lot of other men I've seen." The heart under her fingers lurched. Tom's eyes grew enormous; Sybil saw white all the way around his irises. He started to push himself up from the bed. _Compared to other men she's seen!_

"Tom!" Sybil was shouting. "Tom!" Firm hands pushed him back down onto the bed. "I'm a nurse! **_Remember?!_**"

His eyes returned to normally, and he fell back down onto the mattress, relieved and breathless. "I'm sorry, love; I wasn't thinking."

"It's all right." She assured him. "Now you check me." She had undone her hair, and closed her husband's fingers around a lock of it. He tugged gently. It was attached. She leaned towards him so he could 'check' her teeth…

He did not know the names for her bones and muscles, but murmured praise and compliments about their beauty, and by the time the couple had finished 'making sure' they were 'all there' and that everything was _functioning property_, Sybil no longer knew or cared what her own name was, and Tom no longer knew anything, because he was no longer conscious.

* * *

On the last day, they arrived at Mam's flat in late afternoon to be met at the door by Dara.

"You're back," she greeted them. "Auntie's stepped across the way a minute to speak to Mrs. Mulcahy, but she'll be back in a jiffy. Are you hungry?"

Tom and Sybil said they were famished.

"We'll have you right in a minute, then," Dara told them, ushering them into the kitchen.

They stowed their gear in the guest room, then went to the table. To their surprise, a dark-haired man was at the stove making pancakes.

"Two more customers for ya," Dara told him.

"You've got to be kidding," an American voice said.

"Dr. North!" Sybil exclaimed.

The doctor considered the two new diners. "You're back then. Did you have a good trip?" He grinned as if the question were a joke.

They just stared at him. He was wearing a woman's pinafore apron over his shirt and vest. The odd garment brought out the femininity in the handsome dark face, yet… he still seemed very manly, and completely unabashed to be found in this condition. "Cat got your tongues?" he asked, teasingly.

Brenna walked in. "About time you two got back. I thought I'd have to go after you and drag you back dressed only in bedsheets."

"Mam," Tom objected, blushing. He wasn't the only one: Dara, Sybil, even Dr. North was blushing, but since the American was also laughing pretty hard, and was still slaving over a hot stove, the actual cause of the good doctor's heightened color was a matter which might be open to debate.

"Don't be ridiculous, Tommy," Mam scolded. "You and Sybil are married now, Bill here is a doctor, for pity's sake, and Dara… well, Dara can just cover her ears." Mam winked.

"You still hungry, too, Brenna?" Bill asked.

"You got that right, so get busy," the doctor gave her a sour look but went back to work. Dara set more places at the table.

Sybil started to ask, "How—"

"How does it happen a doctor is frying pancakes in my flat?" Brenna suggested.

Dara had retrieved Brenna's plate, which already contained a partially eaten pancake, from the warming oven and brought it back to the table.

"Well, out of the goodness of my heart, I invited in this ingrate here in for bite to eat—" Said 'ingrate' made a sound, but his hostess cut him off, "I'm telling this story, boyo, not you, so get back to work."

The doctor looked over his shoulder at them for a moment, and Tom and Sybil were relieved to see he was laughing.

"Work!" Brenna yelled.

The doctor grinned and turned back to the stove.

Brenna sopped the food on her fork in the melted butter and syrup on her plate and explained, "so we come in and Dara is making pancakes for us, and he's _complaining _about them. So I told him, 'if you think you can do better, you make the pancakes.' So he is."

Dara set a plate full of pancakes on the table with a dramatic thud. "And they **are **better," she admitted happily. "Have some."

The hungry newlyweds dug in, and Sybil was grateful to see the complacent look the doctor/chef treated them to as he continued with his assigned task.

* * *

The four of them sat at last at the kitchen table, finishing the pancakes, and Brenna, no longer hungry, deigned to treat her 'guest' at least marginally decently, though she warned him strongly not to so much as mention the word 'maple' in her hearing. He could have butter, or sugar, or treacle, or _golden _syrup, she even had some jam, but if he wanted 'maple' syrup, he could go back to America.

"I am," he told her.

"You're leaving?" Tom asked.

"Next week," he confirmed. "But I have something for you, Sybil."

He went to where he'd hung up his coat, and came back with two letters. "This one's a reference, in case you should need it." He handed her the first letter, then looked a Brenna for a long moment. "And this one is my promise kept." He handed the second letter to Sybil.

She opened the second letter, curious what he meant about his promise. The letter was not from him, but from the hospital where she'd met him, offering her a job.

"How did you—"

"Dr. McIntyre owed me a favor."

"But why—"

"You needed someone to help," he said, smiling, and Sybil remembered that was almost the same thing she'd said to him to explain why she'd stayed to help him.

"I feel bad you're leaving, I won't be able to do anything for you in return."

"Sometimes, it's good to do things just because they're the right thing to do. But listen, they're only giving you a chance… I don't know how long the job will last, but…"

"I understand," Sybil smiled. "It's a chance, and then the rest is up to me."

The doctor smiled, and nodded, relieved she understood.

"Well," Tom said. "Now all we need is a place to live."

Mam looked at him and at Sybil, and her mouth pursed itself up into a T. "How did you like that little flat you stayed in on your wedding night?"

If they had thought they couldn't be happier than they were about Sybil getting a job, they were quite wrong. Lady Sybil Branson looked forward eagerly to 'cooking with gas.'

* * *

**Author's End Note: ** _Hey, you! Yeah, you. Writers abhor a vacuum, especially in the review box. Got something to say? Here's your chance. :D Right down there. __  
_


	17. Chapter 17

**Author's Note:** _ "Here's a first rate opportunity To get married with impunity And indulge in the felicity Of unbounded domesticity."—__Stay, We Must Not Lose Our Senses__, _The Pirates of Penzance, Gilbert & Sullivan

**Disclaimer:** I'm not even a custodian, my dears, let alone an owner. These characters and their settings are the work of others. I hope I do not offend with my homage.

**Psst, Mary: **You might want to read "A Kind of Purgatory" if you haven't yet: it has some Mam/adult Tom interaction as well.

* * *

Sybil Branson knew what it was to be God.

_"Domine Deus, amo te super omnia..." _

At least a little bit. She lay, eyes closed and ostensibly asleep, on the narrow bed in the little flat behind the bookstore, listening to the soft Irish voice murmuring in gentle supplication, and was filled with compassion.

_"A Thiarna, deonaigh a misneach dom…" _

Sybil loved to hear her husband pray; surely God must also find it pleasing. Sybil believed in God, and she had been raised to attend services… usually… at least on Sundays… but Tom… Tom's faith was with him, and was part of him, every day.

It was not something he made a show of. He did not talk about religion, he did not ask her to convert, he did not insist she go to mass with him, not even on Sundays (she often picked up shifts at the hospital on Sundays), and thus far she had never actually seen him kneel down next to their bed. He did so only when he came to bed after she was already asleep, or he thought she was asleep, but occasionally she woke to hear his soft whispering to his Lord and was filled with wonder… it was so… she had no words for it. He prayed with the simple faith of a child, who is sure that God is listening.

_"… is le linn dúinn pardún a thabhairt a mhaitear dúinn…" _

Sometimes, if there was sufficient moonlight, she opened her eyes a bit to see him, kneeling beside the bed, hand folded, or else moving over the little string of green beads, eyes closed and veiled with long dark lashes. He looked very serene when he prayed. The beads, she knew, helped him to pray somehow in Latin, though she did not really understand how it worked. Then, eventually, his hands would still, and he would talk to God in Irish for a while, and then finally in English.

_"Lord, please be with Anna and with Mr. Bates, while he is awaiting trial, help them to feel your love, and their love for each other, and help the judge and jury to know Mr. Bates' innocence and help the truth of the matter to come to light." _

Sybil did not really know what the Latin prayers meant, and she did not know what her husband said to God in Irish, but the English prayers she listened to avidly. These prayers generally focused on members of the Crawley family and staff, most often Mr. Bates and Anna, but frequently Sybil's sisters, her parents, her grandmother, Mr. Carson, and so on. Sometimes, he prayed for the soul of Miss Swire and of the footman William. And sometimes he prayed for Sybil and himself.

_"Grant us by your grace to love each other truly…" _

Yes, if she were God, Sybil would be well pleased to have such a worshipper. She was, even now, very pleased to have him as a husband.

_"In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen."_

She heard and felt him climb into the narrow bed, under the covers, and felt him spoon himself again her.

"Tom?" she murmured, feigning a gentle rousing from sleep.

The soft voice responding was amused. "And who else would it be, love? Do you let other men climb into bed with you, then?"

"I might," she teased. "If they felt as good as you."

Wrapped in each other's love, as well as each other's arms, they slept.

* * *

Sybil Branson stood at the stove frying oatcakes, while her husband sat at the kitchen table composing a short note to be added to the bottom two and a half inches of Sybil's recently finished letter to Edith, space which she had intentionally saved for his use. He was writing the 'rough draft' of his remarks on the back of the kitchen slate on which he kept the list of domestic chores waiting to be done. Tom had spent most of his adult life in service: he was used to written lists. It is possible his creation and keeping of this list of chores might have annoyed his wife, but the truth was, it was generally Tom himself who performed the chores he thought necessary to the running of their small household.

The squeaking of the slate pencil on the slate irritated Sybil. Why didn't he use a piece of paper? She knew the answer, of course: paper cost money, and while they had sufficient for their needs, they did not really have any to waste. That was why she was making oatcakes using what Tom termed the 'everyday' recipe, which called for only oatmeal and water. Why had she thought the Irish ate nothing but potatoes? In reality, they seemed to eat only steel cut oats.

In her last letter, Edith had asked Tom about the recent shooting of the four police officers in Dawson Street, and Tom was trying to figure out a way to explain about the republican political meeting at the Mansion House, the suppression of which by the DMP had triggered this violent incident. Ideally, he wanted his explanation to make sense to his sister-in-law, but he also wanted it to fit onto the end of Sybil's letter, which meant it needed to be a hundred words or less. He felt like he was still at work, trying to fill out column inches as directed. Well, if writing weren't an effort, they wouldn't call it work and pay him to do it, would they?

"Mother of Pearl!" Sybil exclaimed from the stove.

Tom looked up from the slate, smiling at the ladylike oath, then realized his wife was really upset. He rose from the table to join her at the stove. "Can I help you, my darlin'?" He kissed her flushed cheek.

"Why are they falling apart for me?" she asked plaintively. "They don't do that when you make them."

Tom looked at the mixture of oatmeal and water in her bowl.

"How can I have botched a recipe containing only _two_ ingredients?" she wailed.

Tom popped a broken half of one of the rather soggy and pale oatcakes into his mouth. "They don't taste too terrible, love."

"Tom," Sybil said in a warning tone.

"Well," he suggested, "you might want to cook them a little longer… and the mixture's a little loose as well," he admitted. "You could add some more oats to it, and then—"

"But it will take _forever_ for the oats to absorb the water, and I'm very hungry now!"

He couldn't help smiling at her vehemence. He offered her the remaining half of the oatcake he'd eaten. Her full red lips took the morsel of food from his hand.

"Why don't we add some flour to it," he suggested, "and that will help to thicken it much faster, and then we can make a pot of tea, and we've some gooseberry jam to go with the oatcakes, which will be quite lovely as well." He smiled at her hopefully. Sybil nodded. Tom had quite a passion for the mouth-wringingly tart green berries, quite at odds with the sweet tooth shared by all the people Sybil worked with.

Tom had opened the left-hand door of the Hoosier press, and turned the handle of the flour sifter a couple times to add some flour to the bowl. He stirred the mixture, then showed it to his wife. "See how much stiffer it is now?" She nodded. "That should help the farls to stay together… Do you want me to finish frying them?" he asked.

"No," she said, leaning over to kiss his cheek. "Thank you. I'll do it. You'd better finish that letter, so we can send it off to Edith."

Tom sat back down to finish his writing, and Sybil concentrated on her cookery.


	18. Chapter 18

**Author's Note:** _ "When you meet someone who can cook and do housework—don't hesitate—marry him." _–Unknown

**Disclaimer:** I'm not even a custodian, my dears, let alone an owner. These characters and their settings are the work of others. I hope I do not offend with my homage.

* * *

The door of the flat stood open, apparently to allow for the unlikely event that a breeze might chance to wander in for a cuppa and to get out of the heat.

"Anybody alive in there?" Brenna called from the open doorway.

"Come on in, Mam!" Tom called.

Brenna Branson entered her son's flat and turned immediately left towards the kitchen from which his somewhat muffled voice had seemed to emanate. She was presented at once with the edifying spectacle of her son's posterior, facing her as he finished scrubbing the kitchen floor on his hands and knees, having started at the north wall and worked his way south towards the tiny parlor, wielding the scrub brush with one hand and a drying cloth with the other.

"The next time I get married," Mam said, "I must make certain to wed a man who has been my servant for six years first. This is clearly the kind of husband you want."

Tom, turning her way as he cleared the threshold, sat up, his bottom resting on his bare heels. "Best you start advertising for a manservant then," he advised her. "There's not a moment to lose."

"Lady Sybil too good to scrub the floor?" his mother sniffed.

"Not too good. She's done it, in fact. Probably scrubbing the floor at work at this very moment. But she's not been home much lately. She's worked the last six days straight, two to them double shifts."

"Why is she working so much?"

"I would think you'd be the last person in Dublin to whom I'd have need to explain the concept of 'making hay while the sun is shining.' The work is available now, that's why."

Mam shrugged. "It's a fair point," she admitted carelessly.

A baby began crying. Close, very close. _Inside_ the flat. Brenna turned incredulously towards the sound, while her son rose and padded on bare feet into the little parlor to pick the child up and soothe it.

An amused smile flitted momentarily around her mobile mouth. "That's quick work, son. Though in truth, I can't imagine why I should be so surprised. Everyone in town said she had to be pregnant or you would never be marrying after shrovetide, but I must say, Sybil didn't show much at all!"

Tom laughed. The now quiet child, snuggled happily against his shoulder, smiled up at the young man and gurgled a laugh of its own in response. "You know perfectly well this child isn't mine, Mam. It's Aisling and Ruari McGrath's youngest."

"How do you happen to have him?"

"Well, Aisling happened to be passing, saw our door was open, and decided she could do her errands more efficiently if she left him here with me."

"No doubt. Pushover."

Tom shrugged. "He's no trouble."

"Mmm-hmm."

He put the child back down as church bells began to ring in the distance: a distinctive repeated triple note. Tom cocked his head, listening. "Is that the Angelus?" he asked.

"Of course. Would you like to say it?"

"Yes, please." He sank down gracefully, the plush parlor rug kind to his bare knees, exposed because he had rolled his trousers up so they wouldn't be soiled while he scrubbed the floor.

Brenna knelt across from him.

"Will you lead, Mam?"

She nodded. "Angelus Domini nuntiavit Mariae,_ [The angel of the Lord declared unto Mary,]_"

Tom gave the response easily: "Et conceptit de Spiritu Sancto. _[And she conceived by the Holy Spirit]."_

"Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum..." By the time the short rite was finished, mother and son were smiling at each other. Religion had always been a bond between them, something about which they had no difficulty agreeing.

"It's good to be home, Mam." Tom told his mother.

"I'm glad you're back," she replied. "I've missed you. Truly."

There, kneeling facing each other in the miniscule parlor of that tiny flat, mother and son embraced.

* * *

"What happens when he gets hungry?" Brenna asked curiously.

Tom raised one eyebrow. "After thirteen children, you don't know?"

She laughed. "I suppose you don't plan to slip him the breast?"

The tip of his tongue brushed his front teeth. "No. I've a nursing bottle and milk in the cold press for him."

"You've ice for it, then? I hope it wasn't too dear?"

Tom shrugged. "I don't know that I'd have bought it left to myself, but Sybil said if she has to work doubles in this heat, then she wants ice for her lemonade after. Would you like some?"

"Lemonade?"

He nodded.

"To be honest, I'd rather have a cuppa, even in this heat. Tom nodded and rose to put the kettle on. Brenna watched him turn the knob to light the gas stove. "That is amazing," she remarked in admiration.

"It's wonderful in this hot weather," Tom agreed, glancing back towards her at the table. "You can turn the fire on when you need it, and just turn it off when you're done."

Mam watched him get out the tea things, and looking at his bare legs and feet, plump rounded toes gripping the clean floor, she was reminded of his boyhood. "I thought it was the girl who was supposed to be barefoot in the kitchen?"

Tom grinned. "What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Would you like a slice of cake with your tea? There's still a bit left." By 'cake' he meant the sweet raisin bread he baked for Sundays.

"That would be lovely," Mam said.

Tom retrieved the remains of the round loaf from the bottom righthand metal lined "bread" drawer of the Hoosier press.

"Is it Norway ice you bought?" Mam asked.

"No. There's a plant a few streets east of here; it's plant ice. It's not so dear."

"Can I beg a chuck of it off you when I leave? Mrs. Brennan has a fever, poor thing. I'm headed over to see her when I leave here."

"Certainly. St. Gertrude speed her recovery."

"How does it happen you're not at work this afternoon?"

"H.L. and I were out 'til nearly dawn. When Natan saw us this morning, he said the others could keep the world spinning without us until tomorrow morning, and told us to go home and get some rest."

"And scrubbing floors and minding a baby are your idea of rest?"

He blinked. "Apparently."

"If only I'd known when you were a boy!"

Tom laughed.

"Were you investigating the shooting of that detective sergeant?"

Tom nodded.

"How does it look?"

"Not good. There could be a lot of trouble over it." Since it's 'declaration of independence,' Ireland (in the form of Sinn Féin) had, as Tom had predicted, set about setting itself up as a sovereign state despite the fact that the country was still occupied by its English overlords, who watched, bemused and seemingly undecided about what to do about it. Even so, the situation was in many respects a powderkeg, and the shooting of the detective sergeant, engaged on political duty, on his way home at night, was just the sort of incident to set up a domino effect of violence. "Dominus, dona nobis pacem."

Brenna wondered whether her son's final sentence were a commentary, or an actual prayer. Either way: "Amen," she replied.

* * *

Sybil did not know when she had been so glad to see the open door of their flat. She had to get out of this uniform! Goodness, it was hot. She flew in and went directly to the bedroom to strip off her gray nurse's uniform and put on a loose housedress. Relieved, and much cooler, she went into the parlor and collapsed on the chaise longue. She closed her eyes and breathed a sigh of relief.

She was so thirsty, though. "Tom!" she called, "Darling, can you bring me—"

"It's here, love," the soft Irish voice murmured from quite close by. Something very cold touched her hand. She opened her eyes to see her husband, kneeling next to her long chair, pressing her fingers around a tall glass of iced lemonade. She smiled at him and sat up. "Thank you, sweetheart, that's just what I wanted." He smiled up at her, and she drank gratefully.

Sybil loved the way Tom made lemonade: tart, with just enough sugar that drinking it was a pleasure, the acidity of the lemons still full and potent, the sweetness just barely overcoming the bitterness, all the more enjoyable, because knowledge of the alternative was still there on your tongue: a knife edge teetering between pleasure and pain. Sybil herself could never do it: when she made lemonade it was always either too tart or too sweet. Tom's was perfect: exactly the way she liked it.

Meanwhile, he had drawn her legs off the chaise longue and was stripping off her long black stockings. He had cooled a cloth somehow, and he wiped her legs and feet with it, the coolness delicious against her tired, hot flesh. He began to massage her aching feet. His hands were cold from handling the ice, the lemonade, and the cloth, and the sensation was exquisite: his cold fingers soothing her tired soles, loosening her knotted muscles, relaxing her, arousing her….

His head was bowed over her feet resting in his lap. She set her drink on a coaster, and combed her tired fingers through his hair. He looked up at her, and she saw to her pleasure that there were dark circles under his eyes. She was so tired herself, she thought if he had seemed well rested, it would have irritated her, but to have him be so solicitous of her comfort, when he was so obviously knackered himself… it made her feel powerful, like an intoxicating wine, his very fatigue a special gift of love.

"Is there anything for dinner?" she asked.

He nodded. Taking advantage of the presence of the ice, he had made Vichysoisse. To accompany it, there was cold spiced beef, brought over by his sister Pegeen, because he had finally remembered to ask her for the receipt to send to Mrs. Patmore for Mary. (_Mary._ Sybil loved the way her husband said her sister's name.) And for dessert, in his final contribution to Christmas in July, two oranges, bought from a little girl hawker who had come to the door.

"She seemed a happy child, but she was terribly disfigured," he told his wife, concerned. "She'd been kissed by Gloriana," at her questioning look, he smiled sheepishly and explained, "she had a strawberry colored birthmark on her face, that's what we always called it, and her cheek..." he bit his lips. "It looked blown outwards like one of those gargoyles that play the trumpet, but it was her checkbone… and part of her cheek actually looked _blue…_ What would cause something like that?" Sybil had no idea.

"What time did you get in last night?" she asked.

"Not till nearly dawn."

"And you went to work today?"

"I did, but Natan sent us home early to get some sleep."

"And did you?"

He smiled tiredly and shook his head.

"Why not?"

"I didn't want to go to bed without you."

Sybil smiled in satisfaction, and one hand, cold from the glass of lemonade, reached out to fondle his cheek. He rubbed his face against her fingers, as though he were a tomcat.

"What did you do instead?" He told her about his day, that he'd cleaned the flat, scrubbed the floor, minded the McGrath baby while its mother was out, and that Mam had stopped in for a cuppa on her way to visit a friend with the fever.

"Did she take some ice with her?" Sybil asked.

Tom nodded.

"See? I told you it wasn't foolish to buy it. In this heat, someone should have some ice."

"You're right, love," he agreed quietly. "You're always right." Her hand was still on his face. He removed it gently so he could kiss her palm. "I missed you," he whispered. She smiled, and leaned down to claim his lips with her own. When they broke apart she said, "We'd better eat now, because _someone _needs to go to bed early."

He gave her a funny look, abashed, as if she'd threatened to send him to bed without supper for some childish offense. His wife's lips curved in gentle reassurance. "It's not a punishment, sweetheart. We're going to eat first. And when we go to bed, it will be together. …and sleeping is _not _the first thing we'll do."


	19. Chapter 19

**Author's Note: "**Marriage is popular because it combines the maximum of temptation with the maximum of opportunity." -GEORGE BERNARD SHAW, _Maxims for Revolutionists_

**Disclaimer:** I'm not even a custodian, my dears, let alone an owner. These characters and their settings are the work of others. I hope I do not offend with my homage.

* * *

The "news," such as it was, was that a motion had been passed by the Dáil Éireann that an Oath of Allegiance to the Republic of Ireland must be taken by all of its members and officials. Tom filed his report, though he privately agreed with some of the members that the requirement itself was hardly surprising: many nations required such an oath. He hoped there would be no trouble over it.

Since he was finished a little early, as a treat he took himself to Marsh's Library. After an hour spent amongst its ancient tomes he felt that the world was a wondrous place full of magical possibilities, and he missed his wife and wanted his dinner.

* * *

Sybil was in the kitchen, wrapped in a full-length apron, a dusting of flour on her nose, cheeks reddened from the heat and eyes shining at her successful culinary experiment.

Tom kissed her cheek. "Zygomatic bone," he guessed, then smiled. "Is that right?"

"On the nose," his wife approved, then kissed his. "Proboscis."

"Something _smells_ good," he teased.

"Wouldn't you like to know?"

"I would."

"It's Toad in the Hole."

"And what else?"

Sybil shoved him. "Greedy."

His eyebrows rose.

She sighed. Her eyes rolled. "Peas," she proclaimed.

Tom smiled. He loved peas.

"Peas," she repeated. "Garden peas. Peas!"

"Peace, love." He kissed her lips. "I love peas."

She let out a breath. "I know you do, husband."

"Is there any bread left?"

"How can you want bread with Toad in the Hole?"

"I don't, darlin'; I only want to know if it's finished."

"Why?"

"Why?" He opened the bread drawer to see for himself since she still hadn't answered. "Because _you'll _want it." The drawer was empty. One corner of his mouth quirked into the trademark Ryan/Branson family non-smile of consideration.

She gave him a funny look. "I don't want bread with Toad in the Hole either, Tom."

"Not _now_," he said. "Come morning you will though, Miss Tea-and-Toast who's 'so tired of always eating oatmeal.' How is it you never get tired of tea and toast? "

"Oh." Sybil moved her lips as though she were trying to spread lip rouge evenly on her mouth, though she was not wearing the cosmetic. "I _will_ want toast in the morning at that. And I _do _get tired of tea. We should get some coffee."

"What about—"

"Don't_ dare_ to mention G. Washington coffee product! That _isn't_ coffee."

"Coffee… Did Mrs. Buckley bring the milk?"

Sybil nodded.

"Where is it?" he asked.

"The fresh milk I put in the icebox."

"What did you do with the sour milk?"

"It's still on the porch, behind the door."

Tom laughed.

Sybil wrinkled her still flour-dusted nose. "It _smells._"

Sybil's husband kissed her proboscis. "Fresh milk won't make the bread rise, my darlin'. Did she take the money this time?"

Sybil nodded. "And I told her 'God bless the cow.' Will you bake tonight then?"

He nodded.

She smiled. She liked to watch him bake bread.

He smiled at her anticipation. "Just make sure you stay far enough away that you don't get a whiff of the milk."

"Uggh," she agreed.

* * *

"Tom," Sybil asked, after dinner as she sat watching him mix the soft winter wheat flour with salt and saleratus. "What's the 'Toyne Beau Coo Alyn-yah'?"

He looked blank. "The what?"

Sybil repeated the phrase, in an even more exaggerated manner. "A story, isn't it?"

Her husband stared at her a moment, perplexed, then realized what she was trying to say. He laughed. "The Táin Bó Cúailnge, you mean. Yes, it's a story. The Cattle Raid of Cooley. About a Queen named Maeve who uses her 'friendly thighs' to great effect." He leered suggestively.

Sybil laughed. "You're making that up," she accused.

"Who could make that up?" he asked, crossing to the street door and stepping outside momentarily. He returned with a little covered metal pail of the type known as a 'growler' and said, "You'd better hold your nose, love. Here comes the milk."

He added it to the dry ingredients, mixed briefly, then turned the dough onto the counter of the Hoosier cabinet so he could knead it lightly while he told his wife the story of Maeve, her husband, and the Brown Bull of Cooley, in a version that centered much more than was normally the case on the queen's own friendly thighs.

"And that," he said, after he'd cut a cross into the top of the round loaf and slid it into the oven, "is why husbands and wives should never compare their wealth, and why a wife's thighs should be friendly only to her husband."

"Yes, husband," Sybil agreed huskily. "Come into the bedroom while the bread is baking, Tom," Sybil invited, a sultry smile on her full red lips, "and my own friendly thighs will give you a hundred thousand welcomes."


	20. Chapter 20

**Author's Note:** _"We have chosen to fill our hives with honey and wax; thus furnishing mankind with the two noblest of things, which are sweetness and light." _― Jonathan Swift

**Disclaimer:** I'm not even a custodian, my dears, let alone an owner. These characters and their settings are the work of others. I hope I do not offend with my homage.

* * *

Making love in such a narrow bed could be a bit of challenge. It did not afford the freedom of movement a larger arena might have afforded. Consequently, there was sometimes no escape. Take tonight, for instance.

_Ow! _"Sybil," Tom began, "stop that! What are you doing? That hur—"

"You want me to stop?" she asked huskily, not stopping.

_Oh, God!_ Tom's whole body began to shudder. Sybil kissed him deeply, while simultaneously still not stopping. But she lifted her mouth long enough to purr a loving repetition: "You want me to stop, Tom?"

"No," he gasped, now wide-eyed and breathless. "Please hurt me some more, love."

* * *

"Tom," Sybil asked matter-of-factly some little time later when at length both partners were gloriously sated and wrapped securely in each other's arms ready for sleep. "Why is sex so odd?"

She felt the movement of her husband's diaphragm against her back as he chuckled. "Why does it 'hurt so good,' you mean? I don't know, love. You're the nurse. You tell me. Why _is _it so strange? And so wondrous?"

"It's a mystery," she explained helpfully. "At least, that's what Father Cornelius told me."

Tom chortled, his breath warm against the back of her neck. "You asked a _priest _about… sexual congress?"

Sybil pressed her body back against the cocoon that was her husband. "Not specifically. About marriage in general."

"I'm so glad." He sounded, in fact, very glad indeed.

"Tom?"

"Yes, my darlin'?"

"I didn't really hurt you, did I? I wouldn't like to think I was causing you pain with my… passion."

"It _was _painful at first…" he admitted slowly. He was silent a moment, lost in thought or the memory of the sensations she had authored, then his strong arms tightened around her, cherishing her presence, her closeness, and the precious intimacy they shared on that narrow sleeping couch. She felt the release of a full lungful of breath as he sighed, obviously deeply contented, and continued, "but then… _Oh, God, Sybil! ..._then, in addition to being painful, it felt quite lovely as well!"

* * *

Returning from an eventful dayshift at the hospital, Sybil found herself met at the door by song.

_"…crying 'Cockles and Mussels, Alive, Alive. Cockles and Mussels, Alive, alive-o. Alive, alive-o-oh—"_

"Tom," Sybil interrupted. Something certainly smelled delectable!

"Yes, Sybil, darlin'?" her husband chirped happily.

"What's for dinner?"

He took up his song again partway through the musical phrase, leaving off the initial 'cockles' and substituting the word 'it's' in the place of 'and.' _"It's Mussels—" _he sang, gesturing at the covered skillet sizzling on the gas range.

"Not cockles?" she teased.

"Nope," he kissed her. "Not cockles. I couldn't possibly be guilty of such a hoary cliché." He licked his upper lip provocatively and dipped one eyelid in a wink.

"Umm, Tom, darling, mussels and what else?"

He blinked. "You want something else?" he repeated, mock-affronted. "Now who's greedy?"

"To-om," she warned.

He was irrepressible this evening, however. "You know, love, my name actually only has one syllable."

His wife pointed to the little saucepan, sitting on one of the gas range's lit burners. "So you're trying to burn a hole in the bottom of that pot, husband?"

He laughed, giving up. "It's stewed dulse."

"Hmm," she murmured, an approving sound. He hoped.

"And what else?"

He raised an eyebrow, but answered readily. "Pratie oaten." Then, when he saw her mouth open, and in case she thought to object to the 'oaten' part, though she normally liked them, he continued, "and coffee."

"Oh, Tom!" she squealed. Suddenly, his arms were full of very happy wife.

He had broken down and ventured into Bewley's for it finally. "A witless extravagance, lass. You've champagne tastes, and we've naught but a beer budget, more's the pity. His lordship was so right after all, so he was: I can't possibly hope to provide for you," Tom lamented comically, tongue-in-cheek.

Sybil was giving him a strange look. "When did Papa say that?"

_Oops. _"Before we left Downton," Tom replied, in a smothered way.

"Oh." His wife searched her memory diligently. "Was I there?"

"No," he said quietly. He'd been thoughtless. He hadn't told her about his interview with her father; he shouldn't have mentioned it now.

But she asked only, "And what did you say?"

A relieved smile played across the Irishman's features. "I said if you wanted that kind of life, you wouldn't be marrying me." Sybil watched as his smile deepened into a grin of genuine humour. "And look how wrong I was now, my darlin'."

Suddenly, they were both laughing.

* * *

"Tom," Sybil asked later, as they sat at the kitchen table gorging themselves on the succulent pink flesh of the steamed mussels, spooning salty dulse stewed in milk into themselves, and munching on crisp pratie oaten cakes (she rather thought the oats became actually palatable when mixed with mashed potato), "do you know what Matron said to me today?"

"Of course I know," he responded immediately, slurping down yet another mussel and grinning in that maddeningly self-satisfied way he had.

"How could you possibly know?" she demanded hotly.

"I was hiding under a patient's bed," he teased.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, gesturing wildly with a tiny fish-fork. "You are insufferable!"

He caught her flailing hand before she put out his eye with the little fork, removed the utensil gently from her buttery fingers, then raised her hand to his lips and began sucking melted butter off the delicate tapered digits by way of apology, his tongue caressing them seductively. His mouth released the delicious fingertips and his lips curved into a beguiling smile. "You're not _really _angry with me, are you, love?"

Tom did his level best to appear contrite, but it was hard to do when she looked so gorgeous, sapphire eyes snapping with ire, smooth rounded cheeks flushed, red lips glossy with melted butter. "Sybil?" he whispered.

"What?" she grumbled, disgruntled.

"Please tell me what Matron said," he begged wistfully.

She smiled, becoming more gruntled by the moment. "Well," she began, "it all started early this morning…"

* * *

The summer heat returned in September, fiercely enough, and for long enough, that Mam and some of the O'Neill cousins decided to sleep in the park, as many Dubliners were doing, in order to take advantage of the cool of the night. They invited Sybil and Tom along, a friendly and unusual adventure, including a bit of a picnic, as well as some gossip and song. Towards midnight the crowd finally began to settle down to try to sleep.

Tom and Sybil lay next to each other on a thin cotton blanket they'd brought along as a ground cloth, hands clasped, but in deference to the heat not otherwise touching. "I don't know if I can actually sleep," Tom confided to his wife in whispered tones, "without… _you know._"

Sybil chuckled, deep in her throat. "It's too hot, anyway. It's all right if you can't sleep though. We can just lie back and look at the stars."

* * *

The extended heatwave was followed almost immediately by an absolutely freakish cold snap.

"They say it's snowing in the mountains," Tom reported to his wife," and in Scotland and North Yorkshire as well."

"I wonder how they're managing at Downton," Sybil said.

Tom took her hand and pressed a kiss into her palm. "Write to them," he suggested.

Sybil's free hand moved to caress his cheek lovingly. "I will," she agreed. "And I'll tell them how happy I am."

* * *

The summer's idyll was over. England, having watched Ireland, her longtime captive and concubine, setting about setting up the institutions required by all sovereign states, at long last made her move.

The police searched numerous homes supposedly in search of guns and ammunition. Two men were arrested during a raid on Sinn Féin headquarters at 6 Harcourt Street, and a detective officer of the DMP was shot dead in Gt. Brunswick Street quite literally as he left the raid. In October, feeling against the police became so high that a constable was shot in High Street.

The gamble, that Ireland would be allowed to walk away from English domination without a fight, had failed.

In November, by order of the English government, the Dáil Éirann, Sinn Féin, Cumann na mBan, the Gaelic League, and a number of newpapers (including Tom's) were suppressed as 'seditious.'


	21. Chapter 21

**Author's Note: **_If you don't have trouble paying the rent, you have trouble doing something else; one needs just a certain amount of trouble._-Robert Rauschenberg

**Disclaimer: **I'm not even a custodian, my dears, let alone an owner. These characters and their settings are the work of others. I hope I do not offend with my homage.

* * *

Brenna knocked on the door of her son and daughter-in-law's flat. She waited a few moments, and when they failed to respond, she tried the door. It was locked. She opened it with the key they'd given her and entered.

"Tom? Sybil?" The tiny flat was obviously empty.

Brenna went to the mantel and took down the jar where the young couple kept their rent money. She sat down on the edge of the chaise longue and spilled the money onto the low table. The amount was not sufficient to cover their rent. She mentally calculated how great the shortfall was. She had the difference on her, but could she spare it? She tried to think how much she needed to keep for herself.

Suddenly, the door swung open. "Sybil?" Tom called, "I'm ho– Mam." Blue eyes flashed on the jar and the money spilled on the table. He smiled ruefully. "You needn't. We have enough."

Brenna's eyebrow rose. "Not here you don't."

"No, I know." Her son was pulling something out of his pocket. He knelt next to the table and put down some money and a piece of paper. "This will cover it." He quickly sorted through the currency, put the amount of the rent back in the jar, and scooped up what little was left. He rose, put the remaining few coins in his pocket and returned the jar to its place on the shelf over the gas fireplace.

Mam was looking at the little strip of paper. It was a receipt from the Dublin Evening Telegraph noting how much he'd been paid for his article. "This receipt is for less than you needed for the rent."

Tom sighed and sat down on the chaise next to his mother. "I know."

Mam picked up one of his hands, and inspected the grease stains. He pulled his hand back. "I've pumice soap," he said defensively.

"She'll still know," Mam pointed out.

Tom grimaced. "I'm just hoping she won't ask." He turned away a little.

"It's a fine thing," Mam complained, "for a man to be made to feel like a criminal for earning an honest living."

"She just wants—"

"I know what she wants," Mam interrupted. "What do you want?"

Tom turned back to look at his mother, exhaling heavily, cheeks flushed scarlet; clearly, she had been correct in thinking him ashamed. "I want to be worthy of her. I want her to be proud of me."

"_I'm _proud of you," his mother told him. "You're a good man. If she can't see it, then she's blind."

Tom smiled at his mother. "Thanks, Mam... and thanks for…" his glance went up significantly to the jar on the mantel.

Mam nodded. "If either of you need anything, you tell me."

Tom nodded, but he was looking at the floor.

"Tom."

His eyes came up obediently.

"Did you hear me?"

"Yes, Mam."

"You have enough groceries and everything?"

He nodded, but she walked into the tiny kitchen anyway and checked the presses to make sure he had flour, bread and butter, tea, oatmeal, etc. Satisfied that the young couple's stores were adequate, she returned to the parlor. "With Sybil in the family way, you're not to go all brave and proud on me, understand?"

"If we need anything, I promise I'll tell you."

She hugged him. "Things will get better."

"I know."

"All right, I have to go. I'm late." She turned to leave.

"Mam?"

Brenna looked back at her son.

"Thank you."

She leaned towards him, and kissed his cheek. "I love you, Tom," she told him.

"I love you, too."

* * *

That evening, Sybil arrived home a little early.

"Everything all right?" Tom asked.

"Of course," she said. Tom had tended to worry about her a little, ever since Dr. McIntyre had 'declared unto her' the expectation of their 'blessed event.' Sybil thought it sweet, really. "The patient census is down, and it was slow, so they had some of us go home early. I got paid though."

"That's good," Tom said. His teeth raked his lower lip. "I sold an article."

"Wonderful!" she praised him. "To whom?"

"The Evening Telegraph."

Sybil thought. "That's where H.L. went, isn't it?"

Tom nodded. "He told me what they wanted, and submitted my piece to them."

"Do you think they might want more in the future?"

Tom nodded. "H.L. says he thinks so… I got paid for it already."

"Good," Sybil said. "Is it in the jar?"

Tom nodded.

"Time for the moment of truth then," his wife said. She slipped her own pay into the jar on the mantel, then lifted the jar in two hands to bring it ceremonially to the table. She smiled at her husband, then spilled the contents of the jar out across the table. Tom watched her silently from the kitchen doorway.

Sybil glanced over at him as she began stacking the money in piles preparatory to her count. "Is there something for supper?"

"Pea soup," he offered. "Bread and butter."

"Pease porridge, hot?" she teased. "Sounds good. It's chilly out there."

"Winter's here," Tom said. "I'll set go set the table." He disappeared into the other room.

After a few minutes, Sybil called, "Tom?"

He reappeared in the doorway almost instantly. "Yes, love?"

"We did it!" she exulted. "We have enough for the rent!" Sybil rose and came over to throw herself exuberantly into her husband's waiting arms, and cover his face with kisses. He responded eagerly. Finally, she pulled back a little so she could study his face while she gloated. "See, darling? There was no cause for gloom. It's just as I told you. Everything will be all right."

Tom leaned forward to kiss her on the lips. "I was a fool to ever doubt it, my darlin', since I well know you're always right," he agreed.

Sybil disentangled herself from his arms to go back to the table, replace the money in the jar, and set it back in its place on the shelf. That done, she sauntered back over to him. They hugged once more, then went into the kitchen arm in arm to eat.

She hadn't even looked at his hands.


	22. Chapter 22

**Author's Note:** We say that in love there should be no secrets, but in reality, some things are better left unsaid, and some truths are better left unacknowledged.

**Disclaimer:** I'm not even a custodian, my dears, let alone an owner. These characters and their settings are the work of others. I hope I do not offend with my homage.

* * *

"Brenna," Sybil asked, as she sat at her mother-in-law's kitchen table drinking tea one afternoon, "is Tom working on cars?"

"Well," the Irishwoman said, setting down her cup, "that's blunt enough."

"I don't believe in beating about the bush," Sybil said.

"Apparently not." Brenna considered her thoughtfully. "Why not ask him?"

The English girl looked troubled. "We agreed that he would no longer work as a mechanic, and I know he feels guilty about doing it, as well as about keeping it from me. And I _do _understand his reasons… Should I tell him? That I know, and that it's all right?"

"Is it all right?"

Sybil looked away a little. "It's more all right than falling behind on the rent."

Brenna exhaled loudly. "Amen to that… but again, you're telling his mother, you're not telling him. Why? If you really thought it were all right, you'd have told him, not come here to me."

"He could be so much more than just a mechanic, Brenna!"

"He was a mechanic and a chauffeur when you fell in love with him," his mother pointed out.

"Yes, he was, and a fine one, but we need to move forward, not backward."

"He's doing all the freelance writing he can find to do," Brenna told her, "and he's trying to get another job on a paper…he's only accepting work at the garage when there's nothing else to be had…" She shook her head, irritated with herself.

"What is it?" Sybil asked, curiously.

"If I had any sense, I would just say, 'Yes, tell him.'"

"But you aren't saying that?"

"No, I'm not, much as I'd like to." The older woman was clearly not happy. "Sybil, if you tell him you know, and that it's all right, he'll take a mechanic's job and not look for anything else… if you don't want him to take that kind of job, then it's better not to tell him that you know… let him believe he's fooling you, and he will keep trying to do what you want."

Sybil nodded. It was as she had suspected. "Thank you."

Her mother-in-law made a chuffing sound that was almost a snort. "I'm a bigger fool than the two of you."

* * *

As she arrived home after a rather grueling day shift at the hospital, Sybil could hear shouting from inside the flat before she had even opened the door.

She entered to find her husband and his cousin David standing in the tiny parlor arguing.

"Ní bheidh mé!" Tom insisted, both loudly and angrily.

David, clearly livid as well, just shook his head. "Ba mhaith liom é a dhéanamh ach ní féidir liom tiomáint gluaisteán."

Sybil turned into the kitchen to find Brenna, Evleen, and tiny Aíne. The women were clearly attempting to prepare supper, but were distracted by the argument in the other room.

"What's going on?" Sybil asked.

"Da is angry at Tom." Aíne told her helpfully.

"So I can hear," Sybil agreed. "Do you know what your father is angry about, Aíne?"

The little girl glanced at her mother, then answered, "Tom won't do what Da wants."

"What is it he wants Tom to do?"

Brenna looked curious as well, since she spoke no Irish.

"Well," Evleen said, "he has a little freelance work he asked Tom to do."

"For the newspaper?" David was working at _Misneach. _"Why won't Tom do it?" Sybil asked, bewildered.

"It's not exactly—" The men came in.

"Is there something to eat?" David asked brusquely.

"Right here, love," Evleen said.

They sat. Evleen dished up the omelets she had made.

David glared across at Tom. "Is that your final answer?"

"It is." Tom said firmly. He forked eggs into his mouth, grimly.

"Tom," Sybil said. "I think you should reconsider."

Tom looked at his wife in surprise. "Sybil, I don't think you underst—"

"I understand that David and Evleen have done things for us, and we've done nothing to repay them."

Tom shook his head, not negatively, but in bewilderment.

David's face took on a look of satisfaction. Perhaps this English 'milady's' heart was in the right place after all.

Brenna and Evleen watched attentively, their opinions both unsolicited and unreadable.

Aíne just wanted her Da to be happy with Tom, whom she liked.

Tom said, carefully, "You want me to take the job, love?"

"Yes," Sybil told him firmly. "And I want you to thank him for thinking to ask you."

Tom blinked, while the others raised their brows. The silence in the tiny kitchen was deafening. Tom licked his lips, then said: "Go raibh maith agat, a Dhaibheaid. Bheidh mé. Táim buíoch díot."

David smiled. Yes, an English lady in the family was useful after all. "Thank you, Cousin Sybil."


End file.
